Hey there, !

Just like eveything in life, you gotta put in the reps to get the results you want.

And so, taking those words to heart, over the break,

Every day;

Every hour;

Every doomscroll - I meticulously trained my algorithm, brick by brick, to show me some premium content.

Namely, hopecore.

Hopecore is defined as "a social media content trend and aesthetic focused on spreading positivity, inspiration and raw human emotion to counter 'doomscrolling' and negative news".

And let me tell you, it works.

There are so many sub-genres of hopecore, but the two areas of hopecore that I've been interested in are:

1. Asian charity: Asian influencer either lives in or goes to asian country that we might think is relatively affluent, but for some reason don't look after their elderly very well (so they're homeless, or they're breaking their backs doing menial, manual labour to make money), and helps them. These influencers then go to buy food or directly just give money to these elderly people (to help with surgery or debts), post it on insta, get the good karma and likes and shares, and then use the money from ad revenue / donations to help more people, get more content, etc. etc. to create a relatively virtuous cycle. It's mostly wholesome, very sad for the elderly, but very inspiring to see.

   Specifically, @aldenkim16 does this in South Korea, where a lot of elderly will go and pick vegetables from the mountains and sell them in the city. A lot of them are elderly women, who are supporting their families or husbands, and often are trying to make money for surgeries that they need for their back or legs etc. It's heartwarming stuff.

   After seeing this dude do it in South Korea, @blesiva, an anonymous 19 year old, decided to do her little bit for Hong Kong elderly as well. There are lots of elderly people who are collecting cans, or cardboard, or collecting rubbish. She goes to local restaurants, buys like 20 or 30 lunches, and hands them out for free. It's funny - the way she talks to the elderly is so...grand-daughterly. She's very much like 'don't stay out too late, go home and rest'...idk, it's just really nice to see.

2. Small business glow-up: aka ethnic dude in the US goes to small businesses (usually restaurants) that aren't doing well, posts it on his insta, blows up the restaurant, and creates update content where he goes back to see how popular they've become because of his reel.

   @samspov1 is notable because his schtick is that he goes to 'mom and pop restaurants with no customers' and I mean, genuinely, the update posts are SO thankful and grateful. Sam becomes friends with these people, learns their stories, hears their struggle, and when he returns, they come out and try to give back so many ways...it's genuinely wonderful. Yes, we can cynically say it's because of the free marketing, but it's also the joy of people who have had a vision about what they want to share with the world - their cooking - that, at least for a moment in time, comes true. They get a flood of customers come through because of Sam, which in some cases helps them stay alive just for a bit longer but also helps to create community in that local area for people who might not have gone there before; pulling people out of their homes to come out and support local business - what could be better?

   Then there's this other guy @newyorkturk who's just a new york cab driver that goes to immigrant or struggling small restaurants and blows them up. On Insta, that is. Sometimes he goest to try Michelin places too (who could blame him) but his hopecore posts go WILD (especially the updates). You see the sweetest things happen - this post, if you go to the original, is just night and day in terms of the foot traffic and business - and the owners just want to pull him into the kitchen to help because he's just done such a great job marketing them!

Three things I realised:

• It's easy to say (and probably very accurate) that though these people might be helped out once, it's not a sustainable way to stay in business. Once-off handouts to the elderly are likewise unsustainable because they'll still be on the street tomorrow, selling their vegetables or collecting cardboard.

  But so what? You can still have the humanity to perform small acts of kindness in the world while still trying to spend effort elsewhere improving the system. We're human, aren't we? The world is already dark and depressing and full of suffering, but having just a little bit more hope can help remind us the world can be better.

• This stuff is incredibly inspiring. I donated to blesiva because I was just like 'yeah that's such a direct way to help', and sure, it's not scalable, but who cares? I want to help someone (I guess more particularly, Hong Kongers), and I can literally see her going to a restaurant, buying something (thus helping the small business) and then handing it out to the elderly who are breaking their backs working. Small efforts and acts of kindness showing the beauty of humanity - exactly what I want as a palate cleanser from doomscrolling.

• Small businesses are a surprising (to me, anyway) cornerstone of the economy. They're filled with people who have dreams and visions of ways to better themselves, their families, and the communities around them. They're not trying to monopolise the market, they're not trying to out-compete literally everyone in a niche - they're just trying to be part of the community (at least, the ones in these videos lol). It's one of those things you hear about on the news in passing (about how important small business is) but you never really appreciate until you can relate to the actual person behind the story as well. It made me reflect on all the hustle I saw from people in Vietnam as well - so many of them wanting to make things happen in their world! Does that still hold in Australia?

Anyway, there's your breakdown of hopecore. Go out there and build up your algorithm with some new shiny bricks to bring happiness to your life :D

Chat soon :)

(P.S. If you've got any feedback for the newsletter, just hit the reply button!)

✔️Real Life Recommendations

1. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - 4 stars - this is just straight up a good movie. It tones down the zombie shit a LOT, and it ramps up the human story. The characters are living in a post-apocalyptic world; so what's actually happening between the humans rather than between the humans and zombies? Ralph Fiennes absolutely KILLS in this movie as the weird doctor who's survived a long time by himself in the wild. Better to have watched 28 Years Later before this as it's a direct sequel, but definitely a great watch.

2. Feng Shui Calendar - like the tear off one, but digital! It sits as a widget on the phone and man do I love it. I am loving this trend of Chinese things being translated to English BUT STILL having a bit of Chinese there; it's perfectly niche-d at me. I followed the creator on insta and I'm pretty sure it's vibe-coded but that's fine; for now, it's iPhone only.

🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway

1. Underrated ways to change the world - it ain't as hard as you think.

2. Waiting for Barbarians - a poem by C.P. Cavafy in 1894 that I found very poignant - helplessness in the face of impending doom. Perhaps, though, satirising it?

   ...Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?

   Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

   Because the barbarians are coming today.

   What laws can the senators make now?

   Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating...

3. "They saw them on their dishes when eating": The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans - interestingly, it's always the same hallucination, rather than a personal one. Weird!