With 237.6 thousand posts and a combined 7.9 billion views on the social media platform, the hashtag has taken the world by storm.
If you have been scrolling through TikTok recently, chances are you have stumbled across videos captioned ‘hopecore’, with compilations of joyful, buoyant, and reassuring snippets.
#hopecore is TikTok’s newest trend, but it is a far cry from the usual dance and song users have grown accustomed to seeing online.
Videos under the hashtag tend to come with messages of optimism, generally including warm and comforting clips from events such as reunions, marriages, and other such events. In addition, some videos even include poetry and quotes that harbor the same emotions.
Examples include women telling their partners they are going to have a baby, children reuniting with their parents who have just come home from military service, and clips from celebrity happenings such as when two high jumpers shared the gold medal at the 2021 Olympic Games.
The idea is to amplify positive emotions and promote a sense of happiness and hope in scrollers. The trend has seemingly shot up out of nowhere but appears to only be gaining steam as the days go by. In just a week, the number of videos has risen from 180 thousand to over 200 thousand, highlighting the impact of this epiphanic and sanguine concept.
What’s proven rather interesting about this mania though, is that TikTok users are interacting with these videos in a different way than they usually do. Most videos under the hashtag boast a very high number of saves, meaning it is highly likely that people are saving them to come back to later, perhaps at a time when they need that pinch of optimism in their lives.
#hopecore has been particularly useful in combatting what has been termed ‘doom scrolling’, which is the act of (involuntarily or knowingly) spending inordinate amounts of time looking at posts and news that evoke depression, self-deprecation, or otherwise negative emotions.
It is also one of the first trends on the platform that aims at making people feel better about themselves on the inside rather than focusing on outward appearances, such as in previous viral videos like the ‘clean girl aesthetic’.
Louisa McGillicuddy, trends lead at TikTok, said, ‘‘We're seeing the community creating and sharing compilations of motivational quotes, illustrations, images, and poetry in scrapbook-style slideshows - anything from a wholesome meme, to a screenshot of a text from a friend, to a great passage from a book.’’
She continued, ‘‘Hopecore is different from your usual motivational content in that it's very much about being soft with yourself - the posts are comforting, warm, yet also self-aware.’’
Some of the most viral videos have amassed a substantial number of views, with the current leader hitting over 60 million. The comments on these videos are also an endearing insight into humanity, with people commenting to ‘stay on hopecore forever’.
With the plethora of sweet and bright emotions this trend has evoked, we can only wish for a reality that mimics our hopes.
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