There is a saying that I once heard a couple of years back that always made me chuckle, simply due to how accurate it was to me. “Never trust how you feel about your life past 9 p.m.” Funny enough, this saying came to me when I found myself scrolling through Instagram Reels late at night.
Let’s face the facts: spending a while scrolling through something like TikTok or Instagram is a fascinating way to spend our free time. There is an array of personalized content that fills our minds and excites us–it even can reach points where it feels like your algorithm knows exactly what kind of videos you are looking for, or ones that you want to see.
Sometimes, the content on your feed can be a painful jab at how you are feeling. Let’s say you just had a really bad day or something not so nice happened to you. If you end up doom-scrolling, sometimes your feed will start to feed into your negative headspace.
However, the same can be said for the opposite. If your feed has been filled with a lot of negative content, it is not rare to soon see a video aimed more towards lifting your spirit than bringing you down.
Videos and content like this that aim to try and be more positive towards its audience can often be known as “hopecore,” based on a specific style or genre of content. In this case, things that are “hopecore” aim to give someone motivation and positivity despite the negativity that can often flood someone’s feed.
Personally, videos like this can do wonders if someone has been caught in a downward spiraling doom-scroll. When your algorithm begins to feed into a negative headspace, it can really mess up your mood. And if that mood continues consistently, it can lead to your mental health following the same path.
I can not even count how many times I have sat on my phone late at night letting my thoughts wander for so long that my mood begins to shift drastically. But oftentimes, finding videos like this can, even for a moment, help lift you up from a crater that you may have found yourself in.
When it comes down to it, the constant scrolling of social media can take you past highs and lows at any time, but if you ever find yourself feeling down in the dumps late at night, taking the time to shut off your phone and rest will help you more than you would believe. Waking up and thinking “what was I even upset about?” is a feeling that I will not ever get over simply for how ironic it can be. In the moment, it feels like your life is over, but when you get some sleep and think about it again, it can become so small that it barely feels like a problem.
If you find yourself stuck in your room, doom-scrolling into the depths, turn off your social media and take a walk outside. Put on some of your favorite music, play your favorite game, hang out with your friends or do whatever makes you happy. Because at the end of the day, you do not have to live in your own head. Go out and show the world who you are, and when you do, you will be setting out to do exactly what that “hopecore” video wanted you to do.
Michael Ardita can be contacted at
mardita@kscequinox.com
