I don’t often stop to think about how a meme or dumb image makes me feel, but while scrolling through reels the other day, this particular image (with Toby Fox’s Hopes and Dreams playing in the background) hit me like a flash bang.
Those who know me well wouldn’t describe me as an optimist. In fact quite the opposite. Growing up my family (hopefully lovingly) called me Eeyore due to my penchant for complaining, seeing the negative side of most situations, and mostly wanting to be left alone instead of involved in things like family events and parties. To this day, I still often prefer my own company, and I definitely consider myself an introvert, but I’ve come a long way in learning to enjoy the social side of life.
Which is why, when I saw this image, and it made me feel something akin to hope, that felt kind of strange!
Hopecore
The image above and other short form content belongs to a genre known as “Hopecore”. From the stuff I’ve been served it appears to be rooted in motivational content, but with what I perceive to be a slightly more positive and inclusive spin. The general idea is that human being’s ability to overcome the odds stacked against them, either extrinsic (pressures from the world around them) or intrinsic (pressures placed on themselves by themselves) is so powerful and natural that even the universe itself cannot overcome it.
That kind of hypothesis, that individuals acting in their own way can overcome a system or a truth as fundamental as the universe itself? That is punk as shit
Sidenote: A LOT of the hopecore content gives me the same sort of feelings that I got as a young man reading content from the “Humanity, Fuck Yeah” subreddit (/r/hfy for short). I haven’t frequented it in many years but there’s some solid, amateur fiction there about human’s kicking ass in various ways.
Now who exactly am I, some 30-something tech worker to declare something as punk? Well, apart from the fact that the above is definitely intended to be subjective, I personally believe things to be punk-ey if they meet a few fundamental criteria:
- Removal of the expert, creating do-it-yourself attitude - Anything that empowers the individual or small community, generally against the will of higher powers (economic, political, social)
- Anti-establishment - Not strictly in a negative way, but something that goes against the general grain of society
- If someone, somewhere, would see the activity and think “Hell yeah” - To me, there’s something that needs to be inherently cool about something for it to be considered punk. It doesn’t have to be cool to everyone, but it has to appeal at some level.
A few other things I consider to be punk (No I will not elaborate): Selfhosting, gardening, second-hand fashion/op-shopping, repairing instead of replacing, and the indie web
Hoping is hard
I’m typing this out from a very privileged position as far as the world stage is concerned. As an Australian, I certainly consider myself luckier than other folks across the world, for various reasons that I won’t go into here. I’m sheltered, no way around it, and so it makes it very easy for me to type out these next few paragraphs:
I believe that deep down, the anger and division that is seemingly seen everywhere is part of a system. The pieces are all there, from different flavoured news media, algorithmic rabbit holes, even AI-generated ‘evidence’ to arouse suspicion and hatred.
Hope, at least to me, is the vaccine. Having some small ember of hope, no matter how difficult and dark, makes it far easier for me to empathise with others. It makes it far easier to see the human behind an argument rather than the argument itself. It makes it easier for me to understand that the majority of us are in the same boat. If you’re working a full time job, whether you get paid $40k a year or $400k, you’re still working
If you find yourself hating another human being over an opinion, like I have caught myself doing more and more recently, I strongly recommend bringing up some hopecore videos on your platform of choice (May I recommend FreeTube so you don’t have to fork data over to Google?), and thinking of that as your own, private rebellion against whatever powers may be wanting you divided, apathetic and hopeless.