It always felt so separate from me – like this crusty old institution that existed somewhere else, far, far away. Politics was this foreign world of parliament proceedings, press conferences, and old white men in suits, speaking in a language I could never quite understand.

It felt completely irrelevant to my everyday life. So, I told myself I didn’t care.

What I’ve come to realise, though, is that politics itself was never the problem. The problem was how it was being communicated.

I’m part of a generation that grew up receiving information through creators and social media. So when politics kept being presented to me in old ways – in jargon I struggled to comprehend, delivered by serious people I couldn't relate to – it felt totally inaccessible. Like it was meant for someone else entirely.

Now, creators are changing that.

More and more, politics is showing up in the spaces young people already inhabit: in podcasts, TikTok videos, Instagram carousels, and the comment sections of creators they’ve followed for years.

The formal institutions haven’t changed much, but the intermediaries have. And with them, everything about who encounters political information, and how.

I was recently involved in the research for Democracy in Our Feeds, a White Paper led by Dr Susan Grantham at Griffith University in collaboration with Sentiment Agency, which explored this shift.

But perhaps the most interesting finding was that creators aren’t primarily changing people’s political opinions. Instead, they’re changing what people notice, research, discuss, and ultimately what they decide is worth caring about.

Basically, creators are becoming gateways into political engagement: translating complexity, connecting policy to everyday life, and giving young people a reason to pay attention in the first place.

Here are some examples of what this looks like in practice:

1. Politics enters the party
   Ahead of the 2025 Federal Election, the Greens hosted a DJ gig with content creator Abbie Chatfield. Rather than asking young Aussies to enter the political world, politics entered a space that felt culturally familiar to them, combining music and political engagement in the same room.

   

2. Politics enters the podcast
   Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other party leaders appeared on podcasts including The Daily Aus ahead of the election, reaching young listeners and speaking about policy in a more conversational format.
   

   

   
   

3. Politics enters the carousel
   Cheek Media, founded by political commentator Hannah Ferguson, used Instagram carousels to break down what Australians needed to know before they voted, turning complex political info into something more accessible.

4. Politics enters the creator’s world
   Content creator and mental health advocate Milly Bannister partnered with independent MP Allegra Spender to follow her around for a “day in the life,” with the politician entering the creator’s world, rather than the other way round.

5. Politics enters TikTok… and then parliament
   Political commentator Konrad Benjamin (Punters’ Politics) went viral for his campaign on the gas tax, and was subsequently invited to speak before a Senate committee on the very issue his audience had helped him to elevate.
   

6. Politics enters the creator’s newsroom
   Creators, including Sarah Jane Adams from the Big Small Talk podcast, were invited into the Federal Budget lockup, giving them early access to the Budget and the ability to translate it for their audiences.

7. Politics enters the viral conversation
   Content creator and author Jack Toohey went viral talking about the housing crisis, then took that conversation directly to parliament, interviewing politicians about an issue his audience was already invested in.

The political landscape is moving into new media.

I don’t believe this is a temporary phenomenon. Creators are becoming a permanent (and increasingly significant) part of how people, particularly younger people, encounter, interpret, and engage with politics.

We no longer necessarily have to go looking for politics. It finds us: in the podcast we listen to, the carousel we scroll past, or the creator we already follow. That matters enormously for a generation that was made to feel – in ways both subtle and explicit – that politics wasn't really for them.

But the research raises an important caveat: the same qualities that make creator-led political communication so effective can also make it dangerous.

Sure, creators can make complex issues accessible, but they can also oversimplify them. They can bring people into political conversations, but they can also pull them deeper into echo chambers. The algorithms that help an important issue gain momentum are the same algorithms that reward outrage and amplify misinformation.

Without proper guardrails in place, the same channels democratising knowledge can just as easily be used to radicalise the people watching.

So, what’s the solution?

As the way we encounter politics changes, the accountability structures around it need to change too.

Creator influence is already embedded in how young Australians encounter politics, but the knowledge, standards, and support surrounding that influence haven’t kept pace.

The White Paper makes several recommendations, including a creator-led Code of Ethics with clearer standards around transparency, political sponsorships and accountability for misinformation. Because if we want politics to meet young people where they are, we also need to make sure those spaces are safe.

Building the social and cultural infrastructure that allows this new form of political engagement to thrive – responsibly – is exactly what Democracy in Our Feeds is working toward.

Read the full White Paper here.

Come January, you'll always find me head-deep in Pinterest, curating boards of the coastlines I want to swim in, outfits I want to wear, creative hobbies I want to take up, apartments I want to live in, and essentially, the dream lifestyle I’m trying to cultivate.

It’s invigorating! There’s something almost magical about seeing it all woven together like that: a clear picture of what I want, of who I’m becoming. It makes the future feel so real, so tangible. Like I could reach out and touch it.

Seeing my future laid out in front of me makes me believe I can actually get there. Like I really do have what it takes to achieve my wildest goals. And that's the whole premise of manifestation, right? What you can imagine, you can create.

So why don’t we ever apply that same logic to the world around us?

We've stopped dreaming collectively

Personal vision boards aren’t some kind of new phenomenon. They’re everywhere. We build mood boards for our careers, weddings, renovation projects, wardrobes, and our future selves.

Manifestation itself has become its own kind of economy, with journals, apps, coaches, workshops, and retreats, all devoted to picturing and pursuing the life of our dreams. Using our imagination to shape our individual lives is basically standard practice at this point.

But almost none of that imaginative energy points outward.

It’s like we’ve privatised imagination. We’ve normalised imagining better versions of ourselves, but rarely a better version of the world we share.

I mean, when was the last time you sat down and asked yourself:
What do I want the world to look like?

And I don’t mean in the vague, ambient sense (more kindness! Less inequality! Cheaper rent!). I mean with that same specificity we'd bring to our annual vision board on January 1st: what does the city street look like? The school? The economy? The hospital? The standard workday?

We spend surprisingly little time imagining what a better, more abundant society could look like – even though most of us are painfully anxious about where things are headed.

Instead, we treat the future as something that happens to us, rather than something we have any hand in imagining and designing ourselves.

This is what Imagination Activism is trying to change.

Imagination Activism

Coined by Phoebe Tickell, Imagination Activism is "a new kind of activism powered by imagination: the vision and tools to make the world better for everyone."

Much of today's mainstream activism is organised around stopping what we don't want, through protesting, petitioning, and pushing back. And while that’s still hugely important, it keeps us in a stiff, defensive posture, and never a creative one.

We have no trouble naming the crisis, or pointing to everything wrong with the world. We can picture the dystopia in vivid, cinematic detail. But when it comes time to describe the alternative – the more hopeful future – suddenly, it’s all a bit… vague.

And you can’t exactly organise people around vague ideas.

You can't invite people into a world they can't yet see.

Imagination Activism turns mainstream activism on its head – working from what's possible instead of what's wrong.

It draws on hope and imagination to sketch the specific details of a brighter future. Using that same creative muscle we flex on Pinterest, and pointing it outward toward society instead.

Essentially, it's the shift from "what do I want my life to look like in five years?"
to "What do I want the world to look like in five years?”

From “What career do I want?”
to “What kind of economy do I want?”

From “What does my dream apartment look like?”
to “What if public spaces were as beautiful as private ones?”

From “How can I be more productive?”
to “What if rest was designed into everyday life?”

From “What creative hobbies do I want to start?”
to “What if artists were considered essential workers?”

From “How can I make more friends?”
to “What would a city designed for friendship look like?”

From “What do I want to do after I graduate?”
to “What if schools were designed around curiosity and joy?”

An imagination activist is someone who keeps asking, What if?

They don’t wait to see what the future holds. They regularly train their imagination muscle to see beyond our current circumstances, to stretch their sense of what’s possible, and to inspire others to do the same.

As Tickell puts it: “The role of the Imagination Activist is to help people remember that the world could be different. It’s very simple.”

How to become an imagination activist

Before you can build a better world, you have to get specific about what it looks like first. You need to know what it feels like to live inside it.

No, you don't have to be a writer, a politician, or a fully-fledged activist to practice this. You just have to be willing to imagine.

Here's a journal prompt to get you started:
What does an ordinary day look like in a future worth living in?

If you woke up in 10-20 years from now, what's the first thing you'd notice? What can you hear from your window? How do people get to work? Where do children play after school? What has become so normal that people barely notice it anymore?

If you'd like to see an example first, Sarah Noack answers this question beautifully in her recent essay, describing her dream day in 2046:

What I love most about Noak’s vision is that nothing about it is particularly dramatic. There are no flying cars or new shiny technologies. But it’s specific enough, and ordinary enough, that you can picture yourself inside it.

The importance of imagination

We’ve spent decades learning how to imagine better versions of ourselves through vision boards, manifestation and visualisation. Maybe it’s time we became just as ambitious about imagining better versions of the world around us.

Because the future won’t magically become fairer, greener or kinder on its own. Every society we’ve ever lived in was imagined before it was built, and the next one will be too.

So, ask yourself:

What do you want the world to look like?

Whatever the headline – climate disasters, genocides, Trump – I kept score of the catastrophes so I could prove, to myself if no one else, that I hadn't looked away, especially when it seemed like so many people around me had.

I was cynical. But who wouldn’t be? The world’s literally on fire, and most of the time it feels like nothing's being done about it. I told myself that was the price you have to pay for being informed.

For a long time, nihilism felt like the only logical response…

…but it didn’t really ask anything of me.

Cynicism was, in a way, easy.

It was the path of least resistance. Once I’d accepted everything was cooked, all that was left to do was sit back, doomscroll, feel sad, and wait to be proven right. It wasn’t brave. It certainly wasn’t creative. It simply gave me permission to believe nothing would change, which conveniently meant I didn’t have to, either.

Hope, on the other hand, felt hard.

I mean, how was anyone supposed to stay hopeful when every week brought a new crisis, stacked on top of the last one, while scientists kept insisting it was already too late anyway? It felt far easier to surrender and accept things were really, really bad. To lose faith in the fight and tap out.

Believing things could get better? Now that was harder to do.

This confused me, because I’d always seen hope as this airy-fairy, head-in-the-clouds, fluffy kind of feeling. Being hopeful about the future felt silly. But that didn’t really make sense. If hope was just wishful thinking, why did it ask so much more of me?

Now I realise I'd gotten hope all wrong, and I think she's in need of a rebrand:

Hope is built

Hope always seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel to me – the glimmer of possibility somewhere in the distance. Now I think it's more practical than that. Hope is the structure inside the tunnel: the beams, the bolts, the paved path that guides us toward the light, and helps others find their way through too. It’s not a feeling that magically arrives one day. It’s something you have to build. Hope is a muscle – a decision you have to make, over and over again, to believe change is still possible, even on the days (especially on the days) that argue otherwise.

Hope is brave

Hope isn’t as soft as I once thought it was. To stare directly at climate disasters, wars, injustice, and all the other ways the world can break your heart, and still choose to believe that humans are capable of kindness and change, is radical. It’s defiant. It’s refusing to let despair have the final say. Hope isn't the failure to see clearly. It's the decision to act with love in spite of seeing clearly – to dance, laugh, and spread joy in the wake of disaster.

"Optimism is a philosophy that doesn't sugarcoat reality, but stares straight into the void and says, 'Not today, you fucker.'" — Joan Westenberg

Hope is imaginative

Hope powers curiosity. Most people call it an emotion, but I've started to see it as more of a precondition for imagination, because you simply cannot picture a different world unless you first believe one's possible. Hope is what lets us dream beyond our circumstances instead of settling into them. Without it, we stop asking questions and staying curious. Hope is what makes imagining anything else possible in the first place.

Hope is communal

Hope is incredibly social. For years I surrounded myself with bad news and algorithms that rewarded outrage. Unsurprisingly, it made me feel hopeless. It wasn't until I started spending time with people who were actually working on the problems I cared about that I began to feel differently. Hope is contagious! When you see others building a better world, it's a lot harder to convince yourself that a better world is impossible.

Hope is literally good for you

Hope isn't just good for the world. It's good for your health, too. After years of operating from a place of cynicism, I was completely burnt out, and I knew it wasn't healthy or productive. New research suggests people with higher levels of hope are generally more resilient, healthier, and less lonely. They’re also more likely to flourish in school, at work, and in life overall. Win!

The world needs more hope

Yes, I still keep up with the news, and yes, there are still mornings when the headlines make me want to crawl back into bed. The world is still messy, unfair, and it’ll break your heart. That hasn’t changed.

What's changed is that I no longer mistake the worst stories for the only stories.

Now, every single week, I go looking for the best ones, too – finding proof that a different future is possible, and someone's already building it.

Hope is dope. Now go and find some!

I sure don't remember anyone ever sitting me down and telling me pigeons deserved my contempt, but I grew up believing they were a nuisance – full of disease, carriers of filth. Rats with wings. I was repulsed by them without ever really questioning why.

What, exactly, had pigeons ever done to me?

We spend a lot of time examining the beliefs we've consciously chosen: our politics, values, and opinions. Yet we rarely acknowledge the ones we’ve inherited: assumptions absorbed through cultural osmosis, similar to an accent or a superstition. Narratives filed away as common sense. Ideas never questioned, because it never occurred to us to question them.

Pigeons, it turns out, were one of mine.

That changed a few years ago when my algorithm decided – for reasons of its own – that I was interested in pigeons. It started feeding me a constant stream of videos, from women rescuing pigeons in New York to stories of their heroic service during World War II.

Without meaning to, I became curious.

And that curiosity dismantled everything I thought I knew.

[RSPB TikTok Video]

For those who haven’t fallen down this particular rabbit hole, here are a few things you may not know about pigeons:

• They mate for life

• They can count and do basic math

• They recognise themselves in a mirror

• They’re actually quite clean (the risk of catching disease from them is incredibly low)

• They carried messages that saved thousands of soldiers in both World Wars

• They were among the first animals we domesticated, before eventually being abandoned to city streets

For thousands of years, we bred pigeons, relied on them and even honoured them as war heroes. Then we discarded them and called them pests.

[Protect The Wild TikTok Video]

The more I learnt about pigeons, the more my affection grew. Instead of flinching when one wandered too close, I found myself slowing down – noticing the shimmer of green and purple in their feathers, or the way they'd waddle through the city.

Without realising it, my face softened. I became gentler, more compassionate. More present. Not just towards pigeons, but towards the world around me: the swallow on the cafe table beside me, the bees drifting through the garden, the insects I'd spent years brushing away without a second thought.

The compassion I'd found for pigeons slowly began rippling outward. It was as though this small act of curiosity had expanded my entire relationship with the natural world.

[A View From a Bridge TikTok Video]

That’s when I realised I’d misunderstood curiosity. I’d always thought of it as a way of learning more. Instead, it had become a way of seeing differently.

Curiosity hadn't simply filled my head with new information about pigeons – it had changed the way I paid attention. It taught me to approach the world with less certainty and a little more wonder. To ask questions instead of making assumptions.

Because things aren’t simply the way they are.

They’re the way they’ve come to be.

Someone, somewhere, decided pigeons were pests. Someone decided which animals deserve our compassion, and which deserve our contempt. And once curiosity interrupts that – once you stop accepting that’s just how it is – you start asking a new set of questions:

Why?

Who decided?

Could it be different?

It's very hard to remain indifferent to something you've taken the time to understand. The more I learnt about pigeons, the harder they became to dismiss.

Knowledge became understanding. And understanding, given enough time, has a remarkable tendency to become compassion.

Perhaps that's what curiosity really offers us: not just new information, but a new relationship with the world. A willingness to look again at what we thought we already knew, and to discover, sometimes, that we had it wrong.

All it took, for me, was a pigeon.

“I know it’s trash…”

“It’s so stupid, but…”

Before anyone else has the chance to judge me, I find I've already done it for them. Apologising for my own enjoyment before anyone's asked me to. It’s made me realise how instinctively women learn to minimise the things we enjoy.

We tend to call things like this guilty pleasures. We insist they're "not that deep,” and laugh at ourselves before anyone else can. Somewhere along the way, we absorbed the message that once something becomes associated with women, it also becomes associated with being a little silly.

There are literally more people voting on Love Island USA than in many political elections across the country. Millions tune in every season, all around the world. And yet shows like this, ones aimed primarily at women, are almost universally dismissed as shallow brain rot.

Sure, sometimes it is! But dare I say it, reality TV is also kind of like anthropology. It's a live case study in gender dynamics, beauty standards, relationships, and social psychology.

That's almost beside the point, though.

Even if you watch it purely for the drama and the hotties, you should be allowed to do that without apologising. Men spend hours debating FIFA, Marvel, and Call of Duty, and nobody ever asks them to justify it.

Why do women feel like our joy always needs a disclaimer?

It got me thinking about everything else we dismiss or minimise simply because it’s feminine. Here are a few examples that came to mind:

Shopping

We've essentially built an entire cultural archetype around the woman with too many bags and not enough self-control. Shopping has become shorthand for superficiality, despite involving taste, creativity, and, more often than not, a fair bit of budgeting. It's one of capitalism's greatest contradictions: women are relentlessly encouraged to consume, then ridiculed for consuming. Meanwhile, men who spend thousands on golf clubs, watches, sneakers, gaming setups, or car modifications are collectors and hobbyists. When women spend, it's frivolous. When men spend, it's a passion project.

What makes this particularly poignant is the history behind it. For centuries, women were excluded from politics, universities, and much of public life. One of the few public spaces they could enter freely (without male supervision) was the department store. It was one of the first public spaces where women could move independently, spend their own money, meet friends and simply exist outside the home. For many women, it was one of the earliest forms of public freedom. And yet somehow, we've managed to turn that into a punchline.

Gossip

When you call someone a gossip, you're probably not just saying they talk about other people. You’re implying they're petty, shallow, and probably a little malicious. Almost without exception, that word gets aimed only at women. When women discuss relationships, social dynamics, or other people's behaviour, it gets filed under gossip. When men do the same, it's conversation, networking, or simply catching up. We’ve been taught to hear women's conversations differently.

The irony is that gossip comes from the Old English godsibb, meaning a close friend. It referred to the women who attended births together, forming trusted networks for sharing knowledge, support and news. As women were shut out of many formal institutions, gossip became one of the few ways information could circulate outside male-controlled spaces. Women warned each other about dangerous men, dishonest employers and unsafe doctors. It was threatening enough that in 1547, a proclamation was issued in England forbidding women from meeting to "babble and talk," ordering husbands to keep their wives at home. Perhaps gossip became shameful not because women talked, but because those conversations held power.

Astrology

Why are we embarrassed to care about the stars?? Astrology has become one of the quickest ways to make someone (ahem, a woman) sound irrational. Say you're a Scorpio rising and the person who spends their weekends analysing stock market trends or perfecting their Fantasy Football lineup will look at you like you've lost the plot. But humans have always been drawn to systems that help make sense of life, and astrology is one of them. It gives language to personality, relationships, uncertainty and change. The discomfort, I'd argue, isn't really about astrology at all. It's about feminine curiosity, and our deep suspicion of it.

What's rarely acknowledged is that astrology was once considered serious intellectual territory. Galileo taught it at the University of Padua. Kings consulted astrologers before battle. For most of human history, astronomy and astrology were part of the same attempt to understand the cosmos. But once astrology crossed the line from elite male practice to popular female culture, its credibility collapsed. Market predictions, personality tests, and crypto charts aren’t inherently more meaningful than astrology – they're simply associated with masculinity, finance, and business. Which, apparently, makes them serious.

Female-dominated sports

Women's sport is already chronically underfunded and under-broadcast. But look at the sports women have historically dominated – ballet, figure skating, and cheerleading – and that dismissal intensifies. These sports demand extraordinary strength, endurance, and precision, yet because they're also graceful and beautiful, we somehow see them as less athletic. We constantly mistake femininity for ease, reading the glitter, choreography and costumes as decoration rather than recognising them as part of what makes these sports so technically demanding.

Cheerleading is one of the most revealing examples of how quickly prestige evaporates the moment women take over. It emerged in the 1880s as an exclusively male activity, considered a prestigious leadership role and even a pathway to political prominence (several US presidents were cheerleaders!). But as women entered the sport throughout the twentieth century, men largely abandoned it, and cheerleading was recast as decorative sideline entertainment. Pop culture did the rest, turning the cheerleader into a caricature: blonde, popular, shallow, and decidedly not athletic. Nothing about cheerleading fundamentally changed. Only the gender of the people doing it did.

Romance novels

Just like reality TV, romance novels are another pleasure I'm slowly learning to stop apologising for. Romance is the highest-earning fiction genre in the world, generating more than US$1.4 billion in annual sales. And yet it's still treated as the literary equivalent of junk food: indulgent, unserious and vaguely embarrassing. Men are rarely expected to justify hours spent playing video games, reading spy thrillers or obsessing over superhero franchises. So why is romance the genre that so often comes with an apology? I can't help but wonder if it's because it's overwhelmingly written by women, read by women, and centred on women's inner lives.

History offers us a clue. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë originally published under male pseudonyms (Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell) because they knew female authorship would prejudice critics against their work. Today, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are considered literary masterpieces. The women had to pretend to be men to be taken seriously. Two centuries later, we celebrate those novels as classics while continuing to dismiss the genre they belonged to: stories about women's relationships, desires and domestic lives.

Crying

The rules for women’s emotions are impossible to follow. If she's angry, she's hysterical. If she's ambitious, she's aggressive. If she's excited, she's dramatic. If she cries, she's fragile. Every emotion becomes a liability. And yet emotional intelligence is one of the most valued leadership qualities today. We celebrate empathy, vulnerability and self-awareness in theory, but too often treat women who display them as unstable or incompetent.

It wasn’t always this way. Ancient Greek and Roman men wept openly and publicly, because it was considered a marker of depth and humanity. The emotionally stoic man is a surprisingly modern ideal, shaped by industrialisation and militarisation, when emotional restraint became useful in factories and on battlefields. We began treating reason as masculine, emotion as feminine, and decided one was inherently more valuable than the other.

Femininity isn’t frivolity

Perhaps one of patriarchy's most enduring tricks is convincing us that our interests need to earn the right to be taken seriously. That whatever women love must first prove its worth before it deserves our respect.

Once you start paying attention, you notice how often we've confused feminine with frivolous. How often we've mistaken beauty for weakness, emotion for irrationality, care for softness, and joy for something that needs to be constantly justified.

These ideas aren't inevitable. They're cultural, which means they were learned, and they can be unlearned. Understanding where they came from doesn't erase them. But it makes them visible, and it gives us the chance to stop passing them on.

Imagine a generation of girls who never feel the need to apologise for caring deeply, crying openly, or watching Love Island with their friends. Imagine a generation of boys who grew up believing those things belonged to them too.

That’s the world I’m interested in building – a world where nobody has to apologise for joy.

So the next time someone asks what I’m watching, I’ll simply say:

Love Island.

I know that’s hardly a hot take. He’s probably the most universally beloved person on the entire planet. But truly, very few people have shaped how I see the world more than he has.

Yet when I think about why, it's not his adoration for animals, his soothing voice, or the fact that he’s almost certainly the kindest, most wholesome grandpa alive (though, obviously, all of those too).

It’s the way he’s taught me to hold hope.

For more than seventy years, Attenborough has documented the destruction of our planet. He’s watched forests disappear, oceans warm, species vanish, and entire ecosystems collapse.

I mean, if anyone has earned the right to despair, it's him.

And yet, he never does.

Documentary after documentary, he always holds two ideas at once: the world is in trouble, and change is still possible.

He never shies away from showing us just how terrible things have gotten, but he also never mistakes the current reality for inevitability. Every warning he shares is paired with a possibility, and every crisis is followed by a glimpse of what could exist instead.

Rather than leaving us in a puddle of despair (which, let’s be real, would be so easy to do), he invites us to imagine a better future.

A Life on Our Planet is the perfect example of this:

And that's what I've always admired about him. I've just never had the language to describe it.

Until I discovered Solarpunk.

Solarpunk

We’ve gotten very good at imagining the end of the world.

With climate collapse impending, data centres multiplying, Meta glasses on people’s faces, and AI coming at us faster than we can blink – the bleak, dystopian Blade Runner future (aka Cyberpunk) doesn’t feel that far away anymore.

Solarpunk is a rebellion against that. It’s a creative movement that asks the same question Attenborough has been asking for seventy years: what if we tried to build something better?

Where Cyberpunk imagines technology consuming nature, Solarpunk imagines them growing together, side by side. It’s the future Attenborough keeps pointing toward: green cities, rewilded coastlines, regenerative farms, solar energy, and sustainable tech.

It’s an unapologetically optimistic vision of the future, focused on what we should hope for and build towards, rather than on what we should avoid.

Solarpunk doesn’t pretend the problems aren’t there.

It just refuses to let them be the only story.

The ’punk’ of it all

I've always felt frustrated by the idea that I had to choose between hope and realism.

If I let myself imagine a better future, it felt naive and, in a way, pointless. Like I was sugar-coating reality and not taking the climate crisis – or the state of the world – seriously enough. But if I only focused on everything that was broken (and gosh, so much is broken), I found myself constantly slipping into cynicism. Paralysed by the sheer scale of it all.

Neither ever felt quite right.

I wanted to stay angry and hopeful.

I just didn't know if that was allowed.

Punk says it is.

Punk doesn't ask us to make peace with the world as it is, but it also rejects the idea that this is the *only* way. Rather than letting go of our outrage, it asks us to give that outrage direction. As Keisha Howard puts it in her TED talk on solarpunk, "it takes a lot of punk to resist current power structures and build this type of future.”

This is what Attenborough has always done, I think. He's never asked us to look away, and he's never pretended things aren't as bad as they are. He just also never stopped insisting that we're capable of more.

Yes, people can be cruel and compassionate and extraordinary. Systems can be broken and redesigned. Ecosystems can collapse and still recover.

We can be honest about the present without surrendering the future.

Radical hope

I don't think what David Attenborough has given me is optimism. It’s more complex than that. I think what he’s actually given me is a different relationship with the future. And with hope itself.

For too long, we’ve imagined collapse and forgotten how to imagine flourishing.

We've mistaken cynicism for intelligence and hope for naivety. We've treated imagination as escapism, instead of recognising it as the starting point of all meaningful social change.

Hope isn’t soft. It's a choice you make in full knowledge of the alternative.

The future isn’t inevitable. It’s designed, which means it can also be redesigned.

But before a better world can be built, it has to be imagined first. That's what Attenborough has always known, and that's what Solarpunk is betting on.

Maybe it's time we did too.

Splitting my time between Sydney and Melbourne, I’ve been dipping my toe in each city, trying to decide which one I'd like to call home.

This trip has also become – both unexpectedly and thankfully – a chance to shake off a creative rut I'd been stuck in for longer than I'd like to admit. After too long in a quiet country town, I'd started to feel creatively stagnant. And, well, bored.

So I started saying yes.

To writers festivals, art exhibitions, conferences, panels, poetry nights, supper clubs. I began putting myself in rooms full of interesting people and unfamiliar ideas. Not looking for anything in particular, but simply following curiosity wherever it wanted to go.

That's how I found myself sitting in the audience at a Sydney Writers' Festival panel on Radical Hope, when Anne Beate Hovind casually mentioned the phrase Practical Utopias.

I wasn't entirely sure what it meant, but something about it lodged itself in my brain. So, naturally, I spent the next few days falling headfirst down the curiosity rabbit hole.

Here’s what I found:

First, a quick vocabulary

A Utopia is a perfect society. The word was coined by Thomas More in 1516, and it literally means "no place.” It’s a dreamy world that sounds beautiful and exists nowhere. No conflict or poverty, just universal flourishing. Total bliss.

It's also, by definition, unreachable.

A Dystopia is something we already know intimately. It feels as though we’ve been marinating in it for years: environmental collapse, AI anxiety, obscene wealth divides, genocide, surveillance. It’s essentially the failure mode of a perfect system – the inverse of a Utopia.

It’s easy to imagine a dystopian future. It’s easy to catastrophise, especially when it feels like hell is already at the door. The troubling thing about this is: when all we can envision is collapse, we build accordingly. We stop imagining alternatives. The systems around us stop feeling like they’re up for debate.

This is where Practical Utopias come in.

What, then, is a Practical Utopia?

(It's worth noting this concept has been used independently by different thinkers over the years, including Margaret Atwood. So, this is purely my interpretation.)

A perfect world is a nice idea, sure, but nobody actually knows how to build one. It's too big, too far away, too easy to argue about.

A Practical Utopia is much smaller than that.

It's not a perfect society. Instead, it's a real, imperfect step that proves a different way of living is possible.

If Utopia is like imagining the perfect city, then a Practical Utopia is building one house within it. First, someone experiments with something new – like using sustainable materials or designing an unusual layout that breaks the rules. People probably walk past the house at first and think it's weird…

…but then someone else gets curious and builds a similar house. Then another person does too. Soon you've got a street, then a neighbourhood.

What once looked outlandish slowly becomes the new normal. And eventually, nobody even remembers when it used to be strange. That's how cultural change usually begins: someone goes first, others notice, and curiosity spreads.

So instead of asking what the perfect world would look like, a Practical Utopia asks something far simpler: What's already proving a different way is possible?

Examples of Practical Utopias

Every city, neighbourhood, and community is built on assumptions: about who needs what, who belongs where, and how people should live. Practical Utopias often start by questioning that very blueprint.

Here are a few examples that came to mind while researching:

Dad groups

For generations, parenting infrastructure was built almost exclusively for mothers. Fathers weren't expected to need connection or support, so very little existed for them. Groups like Pints and Ponytails and Latte Dads are slowly changing that, creating spaces where stay-at-home dads can meet for coffee, learn to plait their daughter's hair, and talk honestly about a version of fatherhood nobody modelled for them. One group built the house, and now, similar communities are forming all over the world. Together, they're expanding our imagination of what modern fatherhood can look like.

Little street libraries

A small wooden box of books anyone can take (or leave) sounds simple enough. But little street libraries are built on a radically different assumption: that knowledge is shared, neighbours can be trusted, and the street itself can be a place of generosity. Community gardens, food pantries, and tool libraries all follow the same logic. They invite us to imagine neighbourhoods designed around sharing instead of ownership, and serve as proof that another way of living together is possible.

Wildlife crossings

Most roads were designed with one assumption: they're for people, and nature must adapt around them. Wildlife crossings, however, flip that thinking. Bridges and tunnels are being designed specifically so animals can move safely through habitats we've divided. The concept has existed since the 1950s, but it's now gathering pace across Europe, North America, and Australia. It’s a small reminder that cities and ecosystems don't have to compete. With enough imagination, they can be designed to coexist.

Sober and phone-free events

For decades, the default architecture of adult social life revolved around alcohol, and increasingly, around our screens. New spaces are now beginning to challenge both: sober bars, book doofs, phone-free parties, run clubs and community events designed around presence. They're still emerging, still niche, but they're already making another version of adulthood visible. One where connection doesn’t require a drink in your hand or a phone in your pocket.

Period product dispensers

For decades, public bathrooms have assumed that if you need a period product, you'll bring your own. Australian founder Remy Tucker is challenging that by building free period product dispensers funded entirely by advertising. It's a small piece of infrastructure with a much bigger implication: that period products can be treated like toilet paper (aka a public necessity, rather than a personal inconvenience). Once you see that model working, it becomes much easier to imagine a world where dignity is designed into everyday systems.

Practical Utopias allow us to dream bigger

Practical Utopias are like permission slips. They’re evidence that a different way of organising as a society isn't out of reach. By existing at all, they expand our imagination of what's possible.

Yes, they’re imperfect, half-formed works in progress. Sometimes they’re a little awkward, and we don’t always have proof they’ll be successful.

But that’s exactly what makes them useful.

Once you’ve seen one version of different actually work, even imperfectly, it gets harder to accept that the old way was the only way. You start asking the same question of everything else around you: who decided it had to be like this, and what else could it be?

To avoid dystopia, we need to start zooming in

It’s so easy to zoom out, to catastrophise, and to assume the worst (the worst is loud and everywhere and all around us, I know!). When we do that, hope starts to feel pointless. We stop imagining alternatives and begin treating the systems around us as inevitable.

But they're not.

Every system we live within was designed by people. Which means people can redesign them, too.

This is why Practical Utopias matter. They remind us that change rarely arrives all at once. More often, it begins with someone trying something different: one experiment, one community initiative, one piece of infrastructure.

One weird little house.

If we only ever zoom out to the scale of the catastrophe, we miss the micro changes happening right alongside it. We miss the stories of people already testing better ways of living, working, belonging, and caring for one another.

We can’t wait around for the perfect system to arrive fully formed. We simply don’t have that luxury. Instead, we have to learn to spot the first signs that change is already happening.

And then, perhaps most importantly, be willing to build the next house.

About “toxic masculinity.”

We've become so good at naming what's broken. We can describe, in granular detail, what not to be as a man: misogynistic, entitled, violent, angry.

We’ve made a household name out of Andrew Tate, turning him into the unofficial face of the movement and handing him far more airtime than he ever deserved.

Yes, we’re fluent when it comes to the villains of this story.

But what we’re far less good at – what it feels like we barely ever attempt – is showing who to be like instead. The positive male role models.

Sure, we know what healthy masculinity means in theory. We can tick off the characteristics on our fingers: be emotionally intelligent, communicate your feelings, respect women.

Tick, tick, tick.

But what does that actually look like? In music, politics, and film. Who are the men setting the example? And how can we expect boys to change when we're not spotlighting these examples with the same energy we give the Manosphere?

Instead of focusing on who not to be, I want to shout out some of the men leading by example – both at home in Australia and all around the globe – breaking the stigma around what it means to "be a man."

There are so many of them. Here are a few of my favourites:

Content Creators

Luke Bateman (@lukebateman_)

Former NRL player Luke Bateman grew up in the kind of environment where toughness was currency: rugby league, rural Australia, and a culture that didn't leave much room for vulnerability. For years, he hid fantasy novels in his footy bag and read them behind closed doors, worried what his team might think.

Today, he’s amassed millions of views speaking about fantasy fiction from the cab of his tractor. He’s open about his struggles with depression and gambling, and publicly challenges outdated ideals of masculinity. Bateman is a brilliant role model because he shows that strength and softness can coexist. You can love contact sports and fantasy fiction. You can drive a tractor and write a novel.

@lukesreads“Ultimately boys and men save themselves when they learn the art of loving.” The Will to Change is such a pertinent piece of literature. #booktok #bookrecommendations #reading #thewilltochange #bellhooks

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Kareem Rahma (@subwaytakes)

Kareem Rahma is the creator behind the viral Subway Takes, asking strangers and the occasional celebrity to defend everything from ridiculous hot takes to deeply held beliefs. What makes him such a compelling role model isn't necessarily what he talks about, but how he talks to people.

Rahma listens attentively, stays curious, asks thoughtful questions, and disagrees respectfully, without needing to dominate the conversation or prove a point. He treats women with the same openness and respect he extends to everyone else on the show. In a culture that often rewards ego and the need to be right, this, to me, is a powerful example of healthy masculinity in practice.

@subwaytakesEpisode 335: Men are by far the more emotional and hysterical gender!! Feat @Deli Boys 🚋🚋🚋🚋  #podcast #subway #hottakes #subwaytakes #interview #nyc #men #therapy

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Writers

Lucas Jones (@lucassjoness)

Lucas Jones is my favourite poet. With over a million followers, he’s best known for distilling heavy subjects – grief, trauma, world crises, masculinity – into a few beautiful lines. He’s exactly the kind of artist the Manosphere would sneer at: acting, poetry, drama school. Yet rather than apologising for those things, he carries them with total confidence.

His viral poem I Will Teach My Boys To Be Dangerous Men argues that real strength looks like patience and tenderness. Jones has spoken about the messages he receives from men who say his words gave them permission to feel things they’d spent years trying to suppress. At a time when many boys are taught that emotions are a weakness, he reminds them that emotional depth can be a strength.

@lucasthejonesFrom my book ‘The Camera Loves You, Baby’. Link in bio ❤️‍🔥 #poem #fyp #spokenword #foryou

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Jordan Stephens (@jordanfstephens)

Best known as one half of Rizzle Kicks, Jordan Stephens has spent the past decade becoming one of the UK's most thoughtful voices on masculinity and mental health. Through his Substack, public speaking and memoir Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak and Dogs, he writes with remarkable honesty about everything from addiction and anxiety to self-worth and emotional growth.

What makes Stephens such a powerful role model is his willingness to examine himself. While much of the internet encourages men to project certainty, status and control, his work celebrates introspection and growth. He reminds readers that strength isn't found in having all the answers, but in having the courage to ask difficult questions of yourself.

@weneedtotalkpodWatch the full conversation by searching "WE NEED TO TALK JORDAN STEPHENS" on YouTube. @Jordan Stephens breaks down how the fear of being seen as “gay” stripped young men of the ability to express love, softness, and emotional closeness, even with their best friends. He explains how intimacy between men used to be normal… until shame, fear, and internalised misogyny taught boys that affection = weakness. We need to talk about how much connection we’ve lost and what it’s doing to men. #masculinity #maleintimacy #jordanstephens #rizzlekicks #jadethirlwall #Relationship #black #celebritynews #homophobia #musicartist #newmusic #celebritycouple #channel4 #documentary #intimacy #youngmen

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Politicians

David Pocock (@davidpocock)

If the Manosphere has a physical ideal, David Pocock probably fits it. A former Wallabies captain – he’s tall, muscular, and one of the toughest athletes Australia has ever produced. Yet what makes him such a compelling role model isn't necessarily his strength, but instead, what he chooses to do with it.

Now as an independent Senator, Pocock uses his platform to advocate for minorities and push for change across issues from men's mental health to violence against women. He demonstrates a version of masculinity rooted in compassion and principle, proving that kindness doesn't make a man weaker. If anything, it takes far more courage to stand for something than simply stand above others.

Zohran Mamdani (@zohrankmamdani)

At a time when politics seems to reward whoever shouts loudest, Zohran Mamdani proves there’s another way in. The New York Mayor has built a reputation not through fearmongering or hate, but through empathy and optimism. He speaks with kindness, listens thoughtfully, and consistently advocates for those pushed to the margins.

His compassion, however, never comes at the expense of courage. Whether it’s tenants, immigrants, or women, he says the uncomfortable thing when something’s wrong. During a mayoral debate, for example, Mamdani directly challenged Andrew Cuomo over allegations of sexual harassment. He demonstrates a form of masculinity that feels both strong and secure: someone who can lead with empathy, while still standing firmly for what he believes in.

@bbcnews"What do you say to the 13 women who you sexually harassed?" Zohran Mamdani asked Andrew Cuomo, referring to the allegations. Cuomo has denied the allegations and aggressively pushed back against his accusers' claims. #Debate #NewYork #ZohranMamdani #AndrewCuomo #US #BBCNews

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Musicians

Vic Mensa (@vicmensa)

Vic Mensa is a Chicago rapper, actor, and activist who rose alongside artists like Chance the Rapper. Covered in tattoos, often sporting grills and designer clothes, he’s undeniably cool, with exactly the image many would associate with traditional ideas of masculinity.

These days, he's perhaps best known for his Orange Tree videos, calmly peeling fruit while unpacking everything from genocide to American politics. Even when discussing the world's most infuriating issues, Mensa speaks with a softness and composure that feels increasingly rare online. In a culture that often equates masculinity with aggression, his presence is a reminder that being soft-spoken doesn't make you less powerful. Sometimes, it makes people listen more closely.

Actors

Mark Ruffalo (@markruffalo)

Mark Ruffalo is the kind of man who expands people’s understanding of masculinity simply by being himself. Despite playing superheroes for much of his career, he’s never seemed interested in performing toughness for its own sake. He’s politically outspoken, emotionally vulnerable, and unafraid to publicly express admiration and respect for the women in his life.

He doesn’t treat compassion as something that weakens his masculinity, nor does he seem to feel the need to constantly prove his strength. In a culture where many men are taught to distance themselves from anything perceived as feminine, Ruffalo demonstrates the confidence to embrace his full humanity.

@entertainmenttonightMark Ruffalo is speaking out against the murder of Renee Good and more at the #GoldenGlobes. #markruffalo

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The need for more role models

Despite what the algorithm might suggest, healthy masculinity isn't in short supply. Countless men could’ve made this list, across every corner of culture.

Yes, representation matters. I do believe it’s important we keep giving airtime to the men modelling healthier, more expansive versions of masculinity. Young men need figures they can look up to and emulate. Most of us learn best through example, not by being told what to do.

One final thing, though: men need women role models, too.

So much of the Manosphere's worldview is rooted in a fear of the feminine. The antidote is exposure. Men need to read books by women, watch films centred on women’s lives, and actively seek out women’s voices in the sports and industries they’re already paying attention to.

We need to look past the gender divide and start recognising humanity instead.

We need to stop centring the villains of this story, and start seeking out the heroes. Regardless of gender.

The Knicks just won their first NBA Championship in 53 years, and even through my phone screen, I can tell the city feels alive. People are flooding the streets to celebrate – impromptu block parties, projectors on brick walls, lawn chairs on sidewalks, and entire neighbourhoods gathering to watch the games – like one big communal living room, painted orange and blue.

There’s a chaotic, joyful, infectious energy sweeping New York right now.

And yep, I’m a little jealous.

I have no particular desire to visit the US (I'm honestly not sure I'd even be allowed past immigration), but I desperately want to be in New York. I want to be where the people are.

Scrolling through videos of NYC feels like being in primary school and watching the other class get a pizza party. I have FOMO!!! I yearn for the community that is NYC right now, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

Beyond sports

Of course, the Knicks are central to this story. Sport has an incredible ability to bring people together, regardless of political views or the countless other things that seem to divide us. It opens a doorway, even for people who couldn't tell you a single player's name, to join the crowd.

This moment means far more to Knicks fans than I could ever fully appreciate, so I’ll leave the basketball analysis to those far more qualified than me (namely, my friend Grace, who just launched In The Stands and writes the best sports commentary I know).

But when I think about what I, personally, am envious of in New York, I don't think it's the basketball. It’s the togetherness. The camaraderie. The belonging.

Community is something we talk about all the time, but far less often experience. We work remotely, socialise online, and many of us feel lonelier than I think we care to admit. The hunger for human connection is very real, which is why watching New Yorkers spill into the streets feels so magnetic.

So if the Knicks aren’t the whole story… what’s actually happening in New York?

The name is Mamdani, M.A.M.D.A.N.I

It's important to remember that only a year ago, New York was showing up on newsfeeds for very different reasons. ICE raids were tearing families apart, streets were full of protest, and the city felt divided, frightened, and rightfully furious.

While Trump’s America hasn’t magically disappeared (one can dream), the emotional temperature inside New York feels remarkably different.

A big reason for that shift, I think, is Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Since taking office earlier this year, Mamdani has become something of a global fascination. People from all over have proudly claimed him as “my mayor,” and I’m not sure that’s purely because of his politics (though they’re pretty fantastic too).

What people seem drawn to is the way he enjoys being amongst the people he serves. Whether he's expanding childcare, filling potholes, protecting library funding, or celebrating alongside Knicks fans in sports bars, he projects something that has become surprisingly rare in modern politics:

Presence.

Mamdani is joyfully embedded in the life of New York. Instead of feeling separate from his city, as most politicians do, he seems genuinely invested in experiencing it alongside the people who call it home.

We've grown so accustomed to politicians who feel distant and disconnected from everyday life that when a leader is both hopeful and engaged, it feels radical. Mamdani feels like a breath of fresh air because he makes leadership feel human again.

And perhaps that's why the mood in New York feels so different. Research shows that hope actively changes behaviour. Hopeful people are more likely to engage with their communities, participate in civic life, and show up for one another.

When a leader cultivates that sense of optimism across an entire city, you can see it in the streets. People leave their homes more willingly, linger in public spaces, and talk to their neighbours more often. Crime rates in NYC are also at their lowest in years, and I don't think that's a coincidence.

The case for hopeful politics

I truly believe cities need both infrastructure and spirit to thrive.

You can fix the roads and balance the budgets, but what Mamdani seems to understand (…and what so few leaders do) is that thriving cities require optimism as much as infrastructure.

People need reasons to believe their city is moving in the right direction. They need leaders with integrity. Leaders who are competent, engaged, and invested in the communities they serve.

For me, that's what feels so compelling about New York right now.

The Knicks absolutely sparked the celebration, and fans would’ve shown up regardless. That devotion and 53 years of patience are entirely their own. We'll never really know how this moment might have looked under different leadership.

But to me, the energy sweeping through the city feels like something more than a championship win. It feels like the result of people believing in something again – believing that things can improve, that leadership can still be a force for good.

At a time when so much of the world feels cynical and politically exhausted, people are hungry for hope. We’re starving for leaders who actually care.

A joyful city comes from a hopeful leader.

I just wish we had more of them.

At the very same time, however, the trend of whimsy has taken over newsfeeds – and with it, a growing hunger to bring joy back into the everyday. From trinkets, flowers, and handwritten letters to little libraries, picnics, and junk journals, we’re finding ways to romanticise life’s smallest moments.

To find beauty amidst the chaos.

Magic in the mundane.

It feels like a direct contradiction to everything going on around us, and maybe that’s exactly the point. Historically, periods of crisis tend to produce cultural moments that lean into fantasy, playfulness, and alternative ways of being. When the world becomes unbearable, people reach for softness and beauty. This is not a new pattern by any means.

And so, rather than dismissing whimsy as another silly TikTok trend, I want to look at it a few layers deeper, because I think something important might be happening here.

What is whimsy?

Liz Plank described it best when she said whimsy is like “microdosing delight,” and doing pleasant little things simply because they make you feel good inside your own life: lighting a candle while you write Substack essays, covering your pancakes with star-shaped sprinkles, setting up a picnic to paint, read, or stare up at the clouds. Whimsy is the art of romanticising the ordinary.

But, for the purposes of this essay, I also want to be clear about what whimsy is not (or at least, what I don't think it should be). Whimsy isn't cottage-core escapism or toxic positivity. It isn’t frolicking in fields or baking sourdough while the world burns, sticking fingers in your ears and pretending everything’s fine. It's not a retreat from the world.

Rather, it's a different way of being in it.

Whimsy, at its best, is the capacity to hold joy and grief simultaneously. To stay present with what's hard without being entirely consumed by it. It's finding beauty amid uncertainty, and refusing to give that up, even when the world keeps giving you reasons to.

Why do we tend to dismiss it?

There’s no denying that whimsy is inherently feminine. There’s a real softness to it. Whimsy is playful, delightful, a little silly, and all the wonderful things that patriarchy loves to scoff at. Unsurprisingly, then, whimsy is often written off as frivolous and unproductive – just as most feminine things are.

Not to mention, it doesn’t really achieve anything. In a culture that prioritises hyper-productivity and rewards efficiency, whimsy doesn’t really compute. It feels out of place. Reading for pleasure doesn’t meet KPIs. Daydreaming in a park doesn’t move the needle. Doing something badly, on purpose, just for the joy of it, is practically incomprehensible in a world built around optimisation and output.

How is it political?

I truly believe joy, in any form, is an act of political resistance.

The modern world wants us to be always on, always outraged, always overwhelmed. That state of perpetual exhaustion is useful. Tired, overstimulated people are far easier to manage. They tune out. They stop imagining things could be different. They lose hope.

Whimsy disrupts that cycle. It creates small pockets of freedom within systems that would rather we didn’t have any. It gives us agency, even in the teeeeny tiniest ways, to find delight in the middle of the chaos.

Whimsy also protects something we can’t afford to lose: our imagination. In an age of AI and shortening attention spans, deliberately creating space to be bored, to think slowly, and to follow a tangent for no reason is a form of rebellion. It’s a refusal to outsource our inner lives to robots. Reading under a tree, writing a letter by hand, getting lost in thought – these things protect the wandering, associative mind. And that mind is where new ideas come from.

Arguably, the most politically interesting thing about whimsy is that it helps us to think differently. Charli Chats explored this in her podcast episode ‘The political power of whimsy’ (highly recommend) by comparing right-wing vs progressive political thinking.

Right-wing politics tends to romanticise the past, reaching backward toward something that was supposedly great before. Think: Make America Great Again. Progressive politics, on the other hand, often asks us to imagine something that doesn’t exist yet. To dream up new, creative ways of organising as a society.

“Those who dare to dream of something different are those who are capable of mobilising in ways that we’ve never seen before. They are also usually people who can think creatively of the world and think beyond our current circumstances,” she said.

And what can help us cultivate this kind of creative freedom, you ask?

Whimsy.

Why should we take whimsy seriously?

Excuse the irony of making a serious argument for whimsy, but I do think it’s necessary. We need to stop treating whimsy as this silly little trend and start appreciating how powerful it truly is.

For too long, we’ve confused seriousness with effectiveness in the adult world. For too long, we’ve brushed off anything soft and feminine as weak and time-wasting. We stopped wearing bright colours or indulging in fantasy because we feared not being taken seriously. We got into habit trackers and productivity systems to squeeze every last drop of efficiency from our days.

…and look where it’s gotten us?!

Whimsy and play aren’t nice-to-haves. Research consistently shows that joy widens our cognitive scope, expanding the range of non-linear thoughts and unexpected connections available to us in ways exhaustion simply can't.

When we’re in a state of bliss, we think more creatively. Whimsy gives us the ability to envision what doesn’t exist yet. It allows us to gather, dream, wonder, and create new versions and realities for what’s possible.

Whimsy literally gives us greater political capacities!!!

If the progressive project is fundamentally about imagining a better world into existence (and I wholeheartedly believe it is), then protecting our capacity to imagine is more important than ever.

Joy is politically generative.

Whimsy is world-building.

And in a moment that desperately needs people who can dream beyond the systems in front of us, choosing delight might just be the most radical thing we can do.

A trust crisis, maybe. No longer able to distinguish between reality and fiction.

Somewhere between AI-generated content, staged spontaneity, sneaky marketing tactics, political spin, and conspiracy culture, I feel like I've lost the ability to joyfully engage with the world online without immediately interrogating it first:

Is this AI?
Is this an ad?
Is this staged?
Is this even real?

Maybe my journalistic background is partly to blame. I’ve spent years learning how to fact-check information, verify sources, and interrogate narratives before accepting them as truth. For a long time, that gave me a real sense of clarity.

These days, however, it feels less like critical thinking and a lot more like paranoia.

I squint at everything now. Every video, every headline, every moment that should make me laugh or ache or care – all of it arrives with a creeping suspicion I can't seem to turn off.

Even offline, my trust in political leaders and news media feels increasingly fractured. I'm constantly questioning the sincerity of the people in power, the stories being sold to us as fact, and whether our best interests are anywhere near the heart of any of it.

I don't know what to believe anymore, and I worry about what this is doing to us. What does living in a state of constant distrust do to our emotional capacity, collective reality, and ability to care?

For a start, it's fucking exhausting.

Constantly verifying, second-guessing, and trying to parse what’s real takes a toll. Once trust has been broken, it's hard to rebuild. And when you feel gaslit often enough, tuning out starts to feel like the only sane response.

I know I’ve certainly felt that pull: cutting back on social media (ily Brick), and stepping away from the noise when it all becomes too much. Wanting to opt out completely. I get why more and more people are doing the same.

But what happens when disengagement becomes a habit? The longer you stay checked out, the harder it is to find your way back in. Eventually, distrust stops feeling intellectually rigorous and starts becoming emotionally corrosive.

Apathy stops being a choice.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t think this exhaustion is accidental. Engineered confusion benefits those who thrive when nobody’s paying attention. An overwhelmed, disengaged public is far easier to govern than an informed one.

The result isn’t just individual exhaustion, either; it’s collective fragmentation. We don’t just disagree about politics anymore. Increasingly, we disagree about what actually happened, which sources can be trusted, and what is fact vs fiction.

Every tragedy arrives already contested.

Every crisis comes packaged with competing narratives.

When people are being fed a slightly different version of the world, shaped by algorithms, a shared reality starts to feel impossible. Collective action depends on shared understanding. How do we care for each other when suspicion interrupts empathy before it has time to bloom?

I don’t know what to believe anymore, but I’m too stubborn to accept this is just the way things are now.

We’ve become so accustomed to these conditions that they’ve started to feel inevitable. The exhaustion, cynicism, and confusion. The idea that living in a state of permanent distrust is simply the price we must pay for participating in modern life.

We've become better at imagining collapse than alternatives. Better at imagining social fragmentation than collective care. Better at imagining dystopian futures than healthier technologies, stronger communities, and different ways of organising society.

What do these alternatives look like, exactly? I don’t know.

But what I do know is that I want to stay porous to the world – open without being naive, discerning without going numb. I want to be moved without immediately wondering who is moving me, and why, and toward what end.

If distrust is becoming the defining emotion of this era, then perhaps remaining curious, engaged, and hopeful is its own form of resistance.

I don’t know what to believe anymore, but I refuse to accept a future where suspicion kills our capacity for care.

When I started this account 16 months ago, it was my escape from work. A place to write freely – with no agenda, no strategy, no pressure to make it mean something.

But somewhere along the way, my work and this little corner of the internet became tangled in ways I didn’t expect. And since then, I haven’t really known how to show up here. Or what to say.

So I’m doing the only thing I know how to do when I feel stuck.

I’m writing my way through it.

I started this account (originally titled Morning Journal Thoughts) in late 2024.

I didn't tell anyone about it except a few close friends. It was a safe space for the thoughts I felt I couldn't share anywhere else. An outlet to write purely for the joy of it. No pressure, no expectations, no strategy. Basically an anonymous online diary, and I loved the freedom that came with that.

For context: before Substack, I was running a freelance copywriting business in Bali, working with health and wellness brands. An enormous privilege – getting paid to write every day on a tropical island (I know). But despite what my Instagram stories may have suggested, I was miserable.

Writing for work was supposed to be the dream. But in marketing, where everything has to sell, it felt like it was slowly hollowing me out. My life had become a never-ending stream of capitalistic content, and at a time when global crises were compounding, the work stopped feeling meaningful.

It was a tough pill to swallow – admitting that something I’d poured everything into had stopped feeling aligned. I’d spent the last two years building a business from scratch, only to look up one day and no longer recognise myself in any of it. I was proud of what I’d built, but it no longer felt like me.

So in November 2024, I packed up my life in Bali, ended my relationship, stopped marketing my business, moved back home with my parents…

…and I made a Substack account.

2025 became a kind of interlude.

It was the year I let go of every external measure of success and stepped back from the world to come back to myself. To experiment, write, think, and truly just be, with no deadlines, no expectations, no pressure to have it all figured out. (Which was, honestly, a fucking nightmare for this control freak who loves to have everything figured out.)

I had no career trajectory. No grand plan.

I just started following the nudge.

Whether you think of it as your intuition, your soul’s compass, or your higher self, the name matters less than the feeling. It’s an internal pull. A resonance. That undeniable sense that something is for you before you can even articulate why.

And so I followed it.

I put myself into rooms I’d never been in before. Writers’ festivals, retreats, portfolio career cohorts, nonprofit events, and panel discussions. I started volunteering, offering my skills to nonprofits pro bono, getting close to causes I cared about, surrounding myself with the kinds of people and conversations I’d always been drawn to. On Substack, I wrote about feminism, Palestine, climate change, my decision not to have children, and whatever else was sitting heavy on my mind.

The more I followed the nudge, the clearer it became.

All of it: the events, the causes, the late nights writing, the rooms I was putting myself in, it all kept pointing toward the same thing.

I wanted to make it cool to care.

That right there – making it cool to care – has become my mission.

My guiding light. The thing that finally made sense.

So, what does it actually mean?

During my 2025 hiatus, I kept noticing the same problems:

Caring felt difficult (and uncool!) Whenever I tried to get involved with a cause, my options were limited to: protest, petition, or donate. That was it. Volunteer processes were complicated, websites were clunky, and social media accounts were an afterthought. The organisations doing important work were rarely showing up where young people spent their time, and I couldn’t help but think of all the untapped opportunity: content creators, brand partnerships, IRL experiences.

The gap between online and IRL. Every protest or impact event I went to, I was almost always the youngest person in the room. Online, I could see young people were loud and engaged. Vocal about the things that mattered to them. But it was hard to find that kind of community IRL. I wanted to go to events that felt fun and participatory, that made an impact without feeling like a chore. To be around like-minded people who got it. But that space didn’t seem to exist.

The all-or-nothing rule. I kept picking up on this unspoken rule in the impact space that if you cared, it had to consume you. Donate your time, your money, your entire sense of self to the cause, or don't bother. There was no middle ground. No sustainable path to caring deeply without burning out. And for a lot of young people, that pressure didn't inspire action. It just became another source of guilt. I believed there had to be a version of caring that feels good, and even joyful, with lower entry points and smaller ways to contribute. A sustainable path in.

Guilt was a strategy. I started noticing how most impact comms ran on a single fuel: making you feel bad. Poverty porn. Heavy, solemn, guilt-soaked campaigns designed to shock you into caring. And I get it… but also, I already know things are bad. What I was craving, and what I could see other young people craving too, was hope. Something to believe in. Causes working toward something better, not just holding a mirror up to everything that was broken.

The gap I kept seeing wasn’t a lack of caring. Young people care enormously. What was missing was the cultural infrastructure – creative, social, and accessible – to make it feel cool to care.

I couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I started building it myself.

And now, Cool to Care has become the centre of my work. My frameworks, my business, the way I support clients, and the lens through which I see the world.

This Substack has become part of that. Which is not what I planned.

I joined this platform to escape work, and somehow, it’s become one of the truest expressions of it. But this time, it’s genuinely for joy. I’ve found the thing that lights me up, and I want to keep building it here, in public, with you.

For a long time, this part of me – the part that cared deeply about the world, that got fired up about causes, that wanted to talk about things most people around me didn’t – felt largely misunderstood. Like I never quite fit the rooms I was in.

Now, I’m hoping this page helps me find my people. The ones who get it.

I have more clarity now than I’ve had in years. I know what I’m building. I’m just figuring out what it looks like as I go, and I’d love for you to be part of that.

If this no longer resonates, that’s completely okay 🫶🏼

But to the 900+ of you who have found me over the last 16 months – thank you. Genuinely. This little corner of the internet has meant more than I expected.

Here’s to making it cool to care. 🌎🩷

And I think that was the whole point.

There's so much to unpack about Bad Bunny's performance: the sugar cane fields nodding to the legacy of Puerto Rican agricultural workers, the sparking power poles from "El Apagón,” the street vendors and domino games. Every visual element was a love letter to Puerto Rican culture and resistance (Impact Media did an excellent cultural analysis if you’re interested.)

But what I really want to sit with is the deeper message behind it all. The one Bad Bunny keeps coming back to – in his Grammy speeches, and now, on the world's biggest stage:

The only thing more powerful than hate is love.

Here are three lessons his performance reminded me about choosing love over fear:

1. It’s okay to be misunderstood

The fear of being misunderstood has paralysed me for as long as I can remember. Tbh, I think it's universal: the fear of being fully seen and people still not “getting you.” Because of this, we tend to soften ourselves. Sand down the edges. Shrink ourselves to fit in. We make ourselves more palatable in the hope that we’ll be understood and accepted.

So when BB introduced himself in Spanish to a stadium of English-speaking Americans and performed his entire set without translation, it felt incredibly fucking brave.

He knew millions wouldn't understand him. He knew the criticism was coming (Trump was quick to rage-post about it). And yet, he didn't shrink. He didn't alter his music or code-switch to make white America comfortable. He took up space. He showed pride in his language, his culture, and his people. Instead of chasing the mainstream, he made the mainstream come to him.

As a white Australian with immense privilege, my fear of being misunderstood is still valid, but it's just not the same. For communities who live with that fear literally, who are made to feel like their language, their accent, their skin, and their very existence is unwelcome, this performance meant something I’ll never fully grasp. Especially at a time when Latino communities are facing ICE raids and escalating anti-immigrant rhetoric, watching someone show up this unapologetically felt like an act of defiance. Of hope.

It was such a powerful reminder: Be proud of who you are, even when people won't get it.

2. Representation matters

It's easy for me to preach "just be proud!" as someone who has seen herself reflected in mainstream media since I first turned on a TV. Women who look and talk like me have always been on stage – winning Grammys and headlining shows.

But BB just won the first-ever Spanish-language Album of the Year at the Grammys. He is the first Latino artist to headline the Super Bowl solo. For millions who look and sound like him, this was a first.

A monumental, overdue moment.

There's a loud, global narrative right now demanding immigrants assimilate – learn English, dilute your culture, and become more like "us." Beyond the US, it’s also happening in Australia, the UK, and across Europe. The same rhetoric everywhere: Fit in or get out. But BB didn't assimilate to the Super Bowl. He brought Puerto Rico to it.

He didn't water down his culture for mass appeal. He centred it. Celebrated it. Claimed it. The entire performance was an act of radical pride – the props, the set, the language – all declarations that ordinary Latino lives deserve the world's biggest stage, too.

Inclusion doesn't mean assimilation. It means making space. When identity is centred unapologetically like this, it expands the room. It holds up the mirror for people to see themselves represented. To feel welcomed and accepted.

Visibility creates belonging. It signals: You belong here, too.

3. Love trumps fear (no pun intended)

The central theme of BB's performance couldn't have been more potent.

We're living in Trump-era politics where hate is loud and fear-driven narratives get the most clicks. For Latino communities especially, life in America right now carries a level of fear I couldn't even begin to comprehend. It would be so easy to fall into despair. To feel overwhelmed. To switch off and let hate win.

But that final moment on stage – with people dancing together, and flags from all 35 countries across the Americas flying behind the message “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” was a reminder that hope is resistance.

Instead of leaning into fear, anger, and blame (justifiably so), BB chose something far more powerful: joy, pride, and love. He brought people together. He gave them something to feel proud of, to get excited about. A future worth hoping for.

At a time when the world tells people to hide and make themselves smaller, choosing to take up space with joy is an act of resistance. It’s activism.

And despite what we’re made to believe, hope doesn’t have to be soft or passive. Hope is powerful. It brings people together and sustains movements in a way hate never can. It gives people something to stand for, not just against.

We’re in a moment where it’s easy to feel hopeless. But moments like this remind us why we keep going. Why we must believe change is possible.

Love will always win over fear.

In high school and uni, I'd watch my friends confidently map out their futures – teaching, engineering, finance – while I had no freaking clue. No five-year plan. No fancy job title in mind.

Between multiple degree changes (hello, three weeks of law school) and a few existential crises, the pressure to have it all figured out felt crushing. I honestly had no idea where I was headed.

But amid all that uncertainty, there was one thing I knew for sure:
Whatever path I took, I wanted my work to matter.

I didn't care about industries or roles. I just wanted to do something meaningful. Something that created impact. Something that made the world a little bit better.

That desire has shaped my twenties. It led me to study journalism so I could write about climate change and causes I care about. It’s why I take on pro bono charity clients in my marketing business. It’s why I write, volunteer, advocate, protest, donate, and constantly look for ways to give back.

Maybe it's selfish, but doing good makes me feel good.

There’s just one teeeeeeny tiny problem: I also want financial security abundance.

Yes, I want to do purposeful work. But I also want to (one day) own a beautiful coastal home, and travel the world comfortably. I want to buy nice things without guilt, give back generously, and order groceries without ever having to transfer money from my savings.

In the traditional world of impact work (particularly nonprofits and charities), those two desires aren’t supposed to coexist.

The reality is, much of this sector runs on tight budgets and volunteers. Meaningful work is often unpaid or underpaid, and sacrifice is discreetly normalised. The unspoken rule seems to be that if your work is morally good, wanting money becomes morally uncomfortable.

Its purpose versus profit.

Wanting financial stability (…let alone freedom) is often framed as greedy or unethical, as if earning well somehow undermines the sincerity of your care. As if money contaminates good intentions. Because if you truly cared, you wouldn’t need to be paid for it, right?

You can either do good or earn well, but never both.

So lately, I’ve been pondering:
Is there a way to be for profit and for purpose?

Enter: Social entrepreneurship

Turns out, I’m not the only one wrestling with this ‘morally good’ dilemma.

As the most socially-conscious generation yet, Gen Z is increasingly rejecting the idea that doing good must come at the expense of financial security. Growing up amid a cost-of-living crisis, housing instability, and economic uncertainty, many simply don't have the luxury of choosing purpose over pay.

So instead of choosing, they're leaning into business models where they don't have to: social enterprises, B Corps, and impact-driven businesses.

These models are designed to generate both income and impact. Unlike traditional impact business models and charities, they don’t treat money as a dirty word. They treat it as a tool. For Gen Z, entrepreneurship has become a vehicle for impact.

So, what can this look like in practice?

Here are some of my fave (Australian) for-profit/for-purpose examples:

• Clothing the Gap: a B Corp creating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander merch that supports First Nations justice

• On The House: a social impact startup tackling period poverty through free period-product vending machines, funded by advertising revenue

• Who Gives a Crap: a B Corp producing eco-friendly toilet paper, and donating 50% of profits to clean water and sanitation charities

Rethinking money in the impact space

Money isn’t the enemy of impact.
Money is capacity.

When I earn well, I can do more good. I can give more time, energy, and choice. I can take on more pro bono work intentionally, support causes financially, and invest in ethical, sustainable alternatives.

Earning money doesn’t corrupt my values. It funds them.

I refuse to accept that caring requires giving, giving, giving, and never asking for anything in return. That doing good means going without.

I refuse to accept that profit and purpose can't coexist.

Because they can.

And they should.

So much has happened in 2026 already, it’s exhausting to keep track of it all. ICE raids. Iran protests. Winter in Gaza. Venezuela. Climate-fuelled natural disasters.

And while the state of the world alone is enough to send me into a tizzy, what I’ve found even more jarring is the cognitive dissonance between brand marketing and reality.

One scroll through my feed brings up tragic headlines about tents flooding in Gaza, ICE agents killing innocent civilians, ecosystems collapsing under climate change… right alongside ads for cream cleansers and new arrivals I simply need.

Grief and global suffering, then a new pilates set.
Brand launch.
Genocide.
Sale ends tonight!
State violence.
Rinse and repeat.

It’s so dystopian it almost feels satirical.

It reminds me of that scene from The Truman Show where Truman’s trying to have a real conversation with his wife, who suddenly pivots mid-sentence to hold up a can of cocoa, grinning at the camera: “Why don’t you let me fix you some of this new Mococoa drink? All-natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mt. Nicaragua. No artificial sweeteners!”

To which Truman replies: “Who are you talking to!?”

That's pretty bang-on what social media feels like to me right now: brands performatively selling to NO ONE in particular, completely detached from the reality everyone else is living in.

It’s no secret that trust in brands is eroding (especially among Gen Z), and I can’t help but wonder if this soulless "Everything is fine! Please buy our stuff!" marketing is only making matters worse.

Which raises the question:
Should brands speak out on political issues?

As someone who has worked in marketing for close to a decade, I believe they should. But maybe not in the way most brands think they should.

Because the challenge isn't just speaking about issues, it's doing so intentionally and consistently.

Here's how.

First: only speak on issues that align with brand values

Brands truly don't need to comment on everything. If every brand released statements about every single freaking issue, it would all blur together and lose any kind of meaning. It would feel like a giant publicity stunt.

But when an issue directly relates to a brand’s values, mission, or the communities they profit from? Then yes. Speaking up matters.

And choosing to stay silent? Well, that says just as much:
"This isn't worth risking our profits over."

Take Tony's Chocolonely. They don't post generic statements about every world event. They speak specifically about child labour and exploitative cocoa systems, because those injustices sit inside their product. They talk about the harm they're implicated in, not random moral issues that sound good but have nothing to do with their business.

Second: back it up with real action

Performative marketing juuuust doesn't fly anymore. I'm tired of carefully worded statements with shallow meaning. Things like: "We stand with you." "Happy Pride!" "We care about sustainability."

Cool! But what are you actually doing about it?

If a brand is going to take a stand, it’s fair to expect them to walk the talk. To put real action behind their words.

Look at Patagonia. Instead of talking about climate change, they transferred company ownership to a trust and a non-profit. They committed future profits to fighting climate breakdown. They embedded environmental purpose into their governance structure, not just their marketing campaigns.

Or take Lush Cosmetics. Instead of posting “We stand with Gaza” on social media, they closed every UK store, website, and factory for an entire day, with signs reading: STOP STARVING GAZA – WE ARE CLOSED IN SOLIDARITY.

Brands are expected to prove they care now, not just say it. In a world shaped by corporate greed, taking a stance at the risk of lost revenue means something.

Third: be consistent (and genuine)

If a brand speaks up on an issue, they need to (in most cases) keep showing up. Speaking out once when it’s trending doesn’t build trust. Only consistency does that.

I know there's always risk involved in taking a stance: social media backlash, customers who disagree, internal pushback, fear of saying the wrong thing (I do genuinely think that's what holds most brands back: the fear of getting it wrong).

But standing for something meaningful builds fierce loyalty with people who share your values. Trust isn’t built by being perfect. It’s built by matching words with actions, showing up consistently, and being willing to learn, listen, and course-correct when you mess up. By being willing to try.

To be effective, caring about an issue needs to be an honest, long-term strategy. Not a one-off campaign when it's convenient.

Why speaking out matters for Gen Z

Gen Z is the most values-driven generation we’ve ever seen. And they're completely reshaping what it means to be a consumer.

They care deeply about social issues and the future they’re inheriting. But they’re also skeptical that their voices alone can fix anything. And they’re right to be.

Gen Z knows individual action isn’t enough. Paper straws won’t stop climate collapse. A $20 monthly donation won’t fix systemic injustice. So, instead of carrying that burden themselves, they’re pushing accountability onto the brands they buy from – the entities that actually hold power.

They want brands to step up, speak up, and use their resources to create the kind of change individuals simply can’t. According to stats, nearly 73% actively seek brands aligned with their values, and 68% prefer brands contributing positively to society.

For Gen Z, every purchase is a vote for the world they want to live in. When everything feels chaotic, spending becomes one of the few places they have agency. Their wallet is where they have control.

IMO, caring has become a strategic advantage for brands. It builds trust, relevance, and resilience in a world where people are desperately looking for proof that someone, somewhere, gives a shit.

What this means for brands

Most brand guidelines include the usual – logos, colour palettes, fonts, tone of voice. But what matters most to Gen Z rarely makes the deck:

How do you show up in the world?

What do you stand for beyond profit?

What impact are you making?

For decades, social impact in Marketing Land has been nothing but an afterthought. A donation here, a sustainability page there, rainbow logos during Pride, vague promises about “doing better.”

But as the world becomes more uncertain, brands have an opportunity (actually, a responsibility) to lead with integrity. Because brands have real power. Resources, reach, platforms, influence. And in a world where individual action feels increasingly futile, that power could be used for good.

Gen Z expects brands to care now. Not just in communications, but in business strategy. To embed impact into operations. To stand for something beyond profit. To contribute to society in real, tangible ways.

Caring isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s a competitive advantage that builds trust, loyalty, and relevance with the generation defining the next decade of consumer behaviour.

To brands – social impact belongs in your brand strategy.

Because in 2026, the brands that will thrive are the ones showing up consistently and courageously for the issues that matter.

The question isn’t whether your brand should care.
It’s whether you’re brave enough to prove it.

Angry at the world. Angry at billionaires destroying the planet for profit. Angry at world leaders watching genocide unfold. Angry at systems that keep failing us, again and again.

Just… angry.

All the time.

And while anger can spark meaningful change, it’s fucking exhausting. I’m tired of feeling helpless and bitter. I don’t want to live like that anymore. It’s not sustainable, and it certainly isn’t healthy.

So lately, I’ve been making an intentional shift toward optimism. Toward action instead of rage. Toward believing, even cautiously, that change is still possible.

I’ve gotta be honest though.

Some days, hope feels pointless.

Some days, hope feels like being proud of your reusable water bottle while big corps burn more fuel in an hour than you'll use in a lifetime. Like refusing a plastic straw while industrial trawlers obliterate entire ocean ecosystems. Like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Just… pointless.

It’s this weird cognitive dissonance.

You want to believe your choices matter. That small acts add up. But then you zoom out and see the scale of what we're facing – climate collapse, rising authoritarianism, genocide livestreamed, extreme wealth inequality – and those hopeful little actions feel… absurd.

Silly, even.

And yet.

What's the alternative?

Giving up? Surrendering to the doom? Accepting we're all just passengers headed straight for the iceberg?

I can't do that.

So, from now on, I'm choosing hope.

Not naive hope. Not blind optimism. But this stubborn, defiant belief that things can get better if enough of us refuse to accept the world in its current state.

And maybe, that's what hope is really all about.

Not believing everything will magically work out, but refusing to let despair win.

Choosing to care. Choosing to keep showing up, even when it feels easier to switch off. That’s the energy I’m trying to carry into 2026.

Hope isn’t a feeling I’m waiting around for anymore.

It’s a practice. A decision. A way of moving through the world that feels more honest, and more sustainable, than anger ever did.

This year, I’m asking myself a different set of questions:

Not “what’s wrong with the world?” but “where can I meaningfully show up?”

Not “why bother?” but “how can I create meaningful change?”

I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m done waiting for hope to find me.

This year, I’m building it instead.

For someone who’s felt disenchanted with politics for... quite some time, this felt like a brief glimmer of hope. A peek into what politics could be.

The reality is: Gen Z are over traditional politics. We’re tired of the two-party system. Tired of watching the same old white men make decisions about our futures without ever truly taking us into account.

Collectively, we want change, but no one currently in power seems willing to help us create it. Which is why I believe Mamdani – a 34-year-old democratic socialist – captured the hearts and votes of so many. All across the globe.

Here are ten of the things I loved most about his campaign:

1. The messaging

Everything came back to one word: affordability.

That was it. That was the heart of the campaign. Every policy – universal childcare, free buses, rent freezes – came back to this core issue. In a very human way, he addressed a singular problem that every New Yorker could relate to, and built everything around solving it. It was simple, but it also showed a deep understanding of his audience and what they care about.

His message was clear from day one: “A New York you can afford.”

2. The social media strategy

This was one of the most iconic parts of his whole campaign.

While traditional politicians still cling to long-form speeches and stale press conferences, Mamdani went straight to where young people hang out: their social media feeds.

Between TikToks, IG Stories, carousels, and memes, all of his content felt like it was made by someone who got internet culture. It was culturally fluent. Unlike most politicians, he wasn’t talking at young people – he was speaking with them. In our language. On our platforms. And therefore, nothing ever felt cringe or performative. He campaigned like a content creator. Quick, clever, and culturally tapped in.

3. The IRL strategy

But Mamdani didn’t just have a good social media strategy. He was everywhere. (Seriously though… when did this man sleep?)

He performed Tai Chi at senior centres, danced at gay nightclubs, handed out Halloween candy on street corners, and turned up at MSG after a Knicks game. He rode the subway, spoke to taxi drivers, and walked on foot to his debate.

He didn’t invite New Yorkers to some fancy venue to meet him for a photo op. He went directly to the places where people already were: where they lived, worked, ate, commuted, and hung out. He moved through all five boroughs like someone who actually loves the city he’s fighting to lead. While most politicians campaign from a distance and feel untouchable, Mamdani felt reachable. Familiar. Human.

4. The creator collabs

Mamdani literally built an entire creator ecosystem around his campaign.

A volunteer-run account, @creators4zohran, invited creators of all sizes to make their own UGC-style content. It turned the campaign into something participatory, messy, joyful, and deeply Gen Z. Suddenly, politics wasn’t this distant thing. It was something you could stitch, repost, duet, and comment on. It gave young people ownership of the message. It made them feel like they were part of the story.

And then there were the collabs. Mamdani teamed up with New York personalities like Subway Takes, Are You Okay?, and JulianMSB (Recess Therapy) for street-style interviews. He found creative ways to get in front of new audiences. While traditional politics loves to roll its eyes at “influencers,” Mamdani proved that when you bring them into a campaign authentically, you tap into a level of engagement politicians spend millions trying (and failing) to buy.

5. The branding

Knicks orange. Cab yellow. Subway-sign blue. The man basically turned the entire city into a Pantone palette.

His branding was everything politics usually isn’t: bold, joyful, and alive. It captured the spirit of the campaign. It told a story about the kind of city he wanted to build. And that’s what made it so powerful. The design felt good; it didn’t just look good. It radiated warmth, energy, and possibility. It made people proud to wear it (and they did! My entire feed has been filled with bright-blue tees, totes, caps, badges… the whole shebang).

It was a great reminder that branding isn’t just pretty colours and fonts. It’s emotion. It’s identity. It’s the feeling you get the moment you see it – before you’ve even read the words.

6. The comments

If you spent any time in the comment section during his campaign, you’ve probably seen it: “He’s my mayor! (I’m from Australia.)” …or from the UK, or Kenya, or Texas.

People from across the globe were claiming this man as their own. This trending comment became a sort of inside joke – a way for people to express how much they longed for a politician like him. It felt like a collective “ohhh, so this is what we’ve been missing.” Mamdani represents something we’re all desperate for: a politician who inspires hope.

7. The man himself

It sounds simple, but it’s so rare in politics. Mamdani was… himself.

He’s 34. He met his wife on Hinge. He giggled in a debate after admitting he’s bought legal weed. He used to be a rapper. He’s just a regular person who happens to be really good at politics. The best branding and social media strategy in the world wouldn’t work if the actual person didn’t match the vibe. But Mamdani is the vibe. Everything about his campaign was aligned – the messaging, the strategy, the branding, the person. He led with sincerity, and that sincerity made his campaign impossible not to root for.

8. The community

With over 100,00 registered volunteers and 3 million door knocks, his campaign built a community.

People were making friends, going on dates, finding their people, and having fun while doing political work (a miracle, truly). The volunteer group “Hot Girls for Zohran” became its own micro-movement, hosting debate watch parties, Halloween events, and comedy shows.

It brought people together in a way politics rarely does. It turned volunteering into something social and creative. It gave people a sense of belonging and purpose. Gen Z are starved for in-person community and spaces that feel meaningful. Mamdani’s campaign gave them both.

9. The transitional team

The day after his win, Mamdani announced an all-female transitional team. A wildly diverse and qualified group of powerhouse women.

In the era of Trump-style politics, this wasn’t subtle. It was a statement. A choice. Every move he makes reinforces the same message: he’s listening. He’s paying attention. He understands what people want to see more of: representation, intentionality, and values-driven governance. It’s exactly the energy Gen Z has been waiting for.

10. The HOPE

This was my favourite part.

At its core, Mamdani’s campaign was about hope. And I don’t think any of us realised how much we’d been craving that. While his opponent, Andrew Cuomo, leaned on fear – “Vote for me or things will get worse” – Mamdani did the opposite. He painted a vision of what’s possible. Of what the future could look like if we believed in something again.

In a world that feels increasingly chaotic, his campaign felt like a collective exhale. A reminder that politics can be joyful.

Hope turned out to be the winning strategy.

I grew up with a foot in both worlds. My childhood looked like weekly trips to Blockbuster, playing Snake on my dad’s Nokia, and waiting endlessly for dial-up to connect. But I also came of age alongside the rise of social media, iPhones, and an entirely new existence online.

I remember MySpace’s controversial top 8, illegal LimeWire downloads, and the questionable red carpet fashion of the early 2000s (iykyk). But I also feel deeply aligned with Gen Z – their progressive values, their urgency, and their outright refusal to accept “that’s just how it is.”

While older generations love to label Gen Z as lazy, overly sensitive, and chronically online, what I see is a generation that’s grown up in constant crisis, and is still choosing to fight for change.

The “Gen Z Protest” keeps appearing in headlines for a reason. From Nepal to Kenya, Indonesia to the Philippines, young people are leading movements, forcing corrupt governments to resign, and creating real political change.

If you ask me, that doesn’t sound lazy at all.

Who is Gen Z?

Let’s start with the basics.

Gen Z is roughly born between 1996 and 2010 (I’m a 1997 baby, right on the cusp!)

They’re the first generation to grow up entirely online. Often referred to as digital natives, they’ve never known a world without TikTok, smartphones, or climate anxiety.

They’ve come of age through global crises:

• 2008 Financial Crisis → taught instability early

• Climate Crisis → created deep uncertainty about the future

• COVID-19 → isolated during key social years

• Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Palestine → politicised from a young age

• Mass shootings and war streamed online → desensitised yet justice-driven

• Rise of social media and influencers → blurred the line between creator, consumer, and citizen

The result is a generation that’s hyper-aware, emotionally intelligent, socially conscious, and deeply sceptical of the systems that have failed them.

Why are they protesting?

To put it simply, they’re tired of being ignored.

Gen Z inherited a world in crisis. They’ve watched leaders fail to act on the issues that threaten their futures – climate change, inequality, housing affordability, corruption – while being shut out of every conversation.

They’ve realised that no one is coming to save them.

So now, they’re saving themselves.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Global South, where youth make up the majority of the population. In Kenya, for instance, the median age is around 20 – meaning half the country is 20 or younger. When young people organise in countries where they’re the demographic majority, they become impossible to ignore.

While the reasons for these protests are layered – from unemployment to corruption – the common thread is clear: Gen Z don’t feel seen, heard, or represented.

Where are they protesting?

Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, young people are leading a new movement that has been dubbed the “Gen Z Protest.”

A few examples:

• Nepal → Protesting a social media ban and anger over nepotism in politics

• Kenya → Protesting tax hikes and economic inequality

• Indonesia → Protesting corruption scandals

• The Philippines → Protesting billions of taxpayer dollars missing

• Morocco → Protesting youth unemployment and lavish World Cup spending

• Madagascar → Protesting frequent water and power outages amid poverty

Different countries, same story: Gen Z are rising up against systems that don’t work for them.

What makes the “Gen Z Protest” different?

Two things set these movements apart: decentralisation and digital fluency.

Decentralised leadership

Gen Z movements are leaderless by design. They self-organise online, spreading information through group chats, memes, and short-form videos. If one channel gets censored, they simply move to another.

Without a central leader, these movements are harder to silence. They’re less about following one leader and more about amplifying each other. They’re adaptive and fast-moving.

Digital fluency

Gen Z knows how to navigate digital spaces instinctively. They use TikTok, Discord, Telegram, GoFundMe, and X to mobilise, share updates, and fundraise in real time. Content creators turn their storytelling skills into activism. Memes become political messaging.

Through online communities, support flows across international borders. A protest in Nepal can inspire one in Kenya within hours. Online solidarity becomes offline momentum.

This agility makes Gen Z protests nearly impossible for authorities to predict or control, especially in countries with heavy digital censorship.

So… has it worked?

In many cases, yes.

In Nepal, Gen Z protests forced Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli to resign. In Kenya, they forced President William Ruto to withdraw the 2024 Finance Bill. In Bangladesh, the protests ended with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation. In Indonesia, they’ve kept sustained pressure on anti-corruption efforts. In the Philippines, they’ve built momentum around accountability for missing taxpayer money.

For a generation often feeling hopeless, these protests have become a way to reclaim agency. But more than that, they’re reshaping what activism looks like – showing that resistance doesn’t need hierarchy or tradition. It just needs people who care – who refuse to accept the status quo.

What this says about Gen Z

The “Gen Z Protest” isn’t just a trending political moment. It’s a cultural shift.

It shows a generation that refuses to be passive.

Yes, Gen Z are disenfranchised. Yes, they’re angry. But they’re also hopeful. Hopeful enough to fight for their futures, challenge broken systems, and believe change is still possible.

Maybe this is a hot take, but I think Gen Z are fucking brave. And while I sit on that awkward Zillennial border, I’m proud to stand beside them.

Because if this is what “lazy” looks like?

The world might be in better hands than we think.

“What’s wrong?”
“Are you pregnant?”
“Did something happen?!”

The idea of choosing not to drink was completely foreign in my social circle. Drinking was simply what we did. It was the glue that held everything together. The only way we knew how to be together.

Growing up in Australia, alcohol is practically a love language. It’s how we socialise, flirt, unwind, grieve, and celebrate every significant milestone.

Drinking isn’t just part of culture – it is the culture.

So when I quietly gave up alcohol, it felt like I’d been booted from the fun club. I didn’t know anyone else in their early twenties who’d made that choice. It was isolating. At bars, my only options shrank to soda water or lemonade.

Suddenly, I was the odd one out. The sober friend. The one who stopped being invited to places because it was assumed I wouldn’t come. Whether intentional or not, people treated me differently – like I was fragile, or secretly judging them, or just... not fun anymore.

Back then, sobriety was still painted as an extreme. A rock-bottom story. AA meetings. A life-ruining addiction. Not an intentional choice to feel more like me.

But something has shifted since then.

Now, supermarket aisles are lined with non-alcoholic wines, beers, and mocktails. Bars serve zero-proof spirits with the same care they’d mix a cocktail. It’s becoming normal to say “I don’t drink” without needing to justify it.

A recent Australian study confirmed that Gen Z are drinking far less than older generations. And while the reasons are layered – cost of living pressures, digital socialising, growing health consciousness – the outcome is the same:

The way we socialise is changing.

What about the Third Place?

Sobriety has changed my life in so many ways, and it’s been SO exciting to see more young people embrace a sober-curious lifestyle.

But as drinking declines, so does one of our biggest social rituals: the night out.

Pubs, clubs, and house parties are all slowly losing their appeal. And while that may sound like progress, it also raises an urgent question: if alcohol-fuelled nights out are no longer the default way to socialise… what’s taking their place?

Because while we’re becoming more health-conscious and intentional with our time, we’re also lonelier than ever. And by losing bars as our default hangout spot, we’re losing our “Third Place.”

Third Places are the spaces where people gather beyond home (the first place) and work (the second). For decades, this was the local pub. The wine bar down the road. The club on Saturday nights.

But as our lifestyles have shifted – more remote work, more time on social media, less drinking – those Third Places have quietly disappeared.

Now, we’re left with a cultural gap: fewer spaces for people to come together and hang out… just because. And I think it’s time we reimagined what our new Third Place could look like.

The wellness replacement

As Gen Z drinks less, the culture is already shifting:

Early morning hangouts are replacing late nights. Sundays are becoming the new Fridays. Iced matchas are the new Vodka Redbulls.

The new era of socialising looks a lot like wellness: run clubs, cafe raves, Hyrox events, ice baths, breathwork circles. These events are popping up everywhere, and I am here for it.

But wellness culture isn’t for everyone. And beyond the trend, there’s still a serious lack of accessible, affordable community spaces for Gen Z to gather:

• Cafes close by 5pm

• Boutique fitness classes cost $40+ per session

• Gyms are often solo missions with AirPods in

• Community centres feel outdated (or nonexistent)

• Co-working spaces cost more than rent

• You need to be “in the know” to find niche events

A wellness-centric Third Place is emerging, but it’s not accessible to everyone. And that’s leaving a lot of young people behind.

What Gen Z actually need

For Gen Z, impact and community are the new currency. They don’t just want to do something for the sake of it – they want to feel good about how they’re spending their time and money.

The Third Places Gen Z are craving look like:

Free or low-cost

They’re navigating a cost-of-living crisis. $30 cocktails ain’t it. Neither are $40 pilates classes. When socialising becomes a luxury expense, people just... stop socialising. They stay home. They scroll. Third Places need to be financially accessible.

Solo-friendly

Making friends as an adult is already hard. Making friends as an adult without drinking? Even harder. The best Third Places are designed for solo attendance – where showing up alone isn’t awkward, it’s encouraged.

Genuinely feel-good

For many, hangovers are a thing of the past. Gen Z want to leave events feeling better than when they arrived. This is a generation invested in health, wellness, and a sense of purpose. They want their social time to feel restorative and meaningful.

Community-focused

Gen Z aren’t just looking for places to hang out, they’re looking for their people. For spaces where they’re surrounded by others who share their values, interests, or worldview. Where there’s a real sense of belonging. Of community.

Right now, these spaces are still few and far between.

But the demand is undeniable.

The Friday night pub crawl might be losing its appeal, but the human need for Third Places – for spaces where you can show up as yourself and truly connect – isn’t going anywhere.

We’ve outgrown the pub crawl, but not the need to belong.

The question becomes: who’s going to build these new Third Places?

From watching friends sheepishly turn away from genocide to witnessing biased reporting from media outlets I once trusted, Palestine has completely reshaped how I see the world and systems of power.

It showed me how institutions across the board – media, governments, and yes, even brands – will abandon their values when it's inconvenient to speak up.

But watching brands navigate Palestine has also made me hyper-aware of something I'd never really considered before: brand activism.

And how most are getting it spectacularly wrong.

As the genocide escalated over the last two years, we watched brands scramble. Some stayed silent and faced boycotts that hit their bottom lines (hello, Starbucks and McDonald's). Others posted a neutral “we support peace for all” Instagram story and called it a day.

This has sparked endless discourse about whether brands have an obligation to speak out on political issues. Up until now, most could stay silent without any real consequences. But as Gen-Z comes of age amid economic pressure and global crises, the rules have changed.

Now more than ever, we want to know where our money goes.

Because beyond the rising cost of living, we're watching the world seemingly burn around us. Genocide is livestreamed on our phones. Climate disasters are becoming the new norm.

Our future feels increasingly… fucked.

And when we feel powerless watching children being murdered while our governments send more weapons, when we can't afford a house deposit and feel like we’re scraping to get by, we look for the few places where we do have control – the brands we support.

That’s why movements like BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) are growing, and apps like No Thanks are helping consumers identify corporations complicit in genocide. When everything feels hopeless, choosing brands that actually give a damn becomes one of the few meaningful actions within our control.

So instead of asking whether brands have an "obligation" to speak out, maybe we should be asking: What does authentic brand activism actually look like?

Because when it’s real, it's bloody powerful.

But when it's performative? We can smell it through our screens.

Here are three brands that get it:

Huda Beauty

Huda Kattan could have stayed silent and protected her billion-dollar beauty empire, Huda Beauty. Instead, she made activism one of her brand's defining features, choosing Palestine over profit.

With massive reach across her platforms, Huda has made supporting Palestine central to her brand identity. Beyond donating profits, Huda Beauty has created viral solidarity campaigns like #WatermelonBlush, and postponed lucrative product launches to keep the focus on genocide. Most recently, Huda Beauty partnered with Palestinian artist Saint Levant on the Kalamantina Lip Oil, donating 100% of profits to Doctors Without Borders.

But it hasn’t come without controversy. Huda has received death threats, lost friendships, and faced constant pressure to stay silent. Her response? “I am speaking on behalf of humanity, and I will not be intimidated.” All while amplifying the hashtag #DontStopSpeakingUp.

Why it works: Huda's personal and beauty brand share the same values. The activism never feels performative because we know she genuinely cares – she's shown us that through years of consistent advocacy. When she speaks out now, it feels authentic because it is authentic. Huda proves that real brand activism isn't just donating money or posting an obligatory Instagram story – it's about weaving the cause into the fabric of your brand identity, and making it a reflection of what's genuinely important to you as a person and as a business.

Lush Cosmetics

On September 3rd, Lush closed every UK store, website, and factory for an entire day, plastering windows with the message: STOP STARVING GAZA – WE ARE CLOSED IN SOLIDARITY.

The cost? At least £300,000 in lost revenue.

But this wasn't a one-off publicity stunt. Lush has long championed human rights, animal rights, and environmental protection. In 2024, they created the Watermelon Soap, donating profits to Palestinian children's mental health services. They source olive oil directly from Palestinian farmers in the West Bank, putting money into the local economy rather than just posting performative infographics about solidarity.

"Like the rest of the world, we struggle to find ways we can help whilst the Israeli government is preventing urgent humanitarian assistance from entering Gaza," they explained in their closure press statement. "One thing Lush can currently send into Gaza is our love and a strong message that we stand in solidarity."

Why it works: Lush put their money where their mouth is. They didn't take to social media to show their support – they shut down their entire business operation. Their activism lives in their supply chain, their product development, and their willingness to sacrifice profit for principles. This is what it looks like when brand activism becomes business strategy, not just performative marketing.

Ben & Jerry’s

Ben & Jerry's activism is messier than most, but maybe more honest because of it. Climate change, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights – their advocacy is baked into their brand values and has always made shareholders uncomfortable. But their Palestine stance has created an all-out war with parent company Unilever.

In 2021, Ben & Jerry's announced they would stop selling ice cream in illegal Israeli settlements, calling it inconsistent with their values. This was long before Gaza became global headlines, highlighting the importance of genuine values-focused action, and not bandwagon activism.

More recently, Ben & Jerry’s board publicly called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, making them one of the only major global brands to do so. Their co-founder, Ben Cohen, was also arrested after protesting the genocide, putting his body on the line for his beliefs.

This stance has caused clashes with Unilever, which has since cut millions from funding to Ben & Jerry’s charitable foundation over their pro-Palestinian donations. Legal battles are brewing over corporate censorship, with renewed debates about independence.

The founders aren't backing down: "We fought to ensure our social justice mission was protected when we were acquired. Over the past several years, this has been eroded, and the company's voice has been muted. We won't be silent any more."

Why it works: Despite aggressive censorship, both founders have been willing to fight their corporate overlords to protect their longstanding values, even when it comes at the cost of arrests and expensive lawsuits. That's not performative activism – that's being willing to put everything on the line.

The new rules of brand activism

We're living through a generational shift. Gen-Z is maturing and becoming more politically conscious every day.

When everything costs more and means less, we want our dollars to go toward organisations that genuinely care. About Gaza. About the planet. About creating a better future.

This isn't a trend brands can ride out.

Real brand activism extends far beyond Palestine. It's about identifying issues central to your mission and values, then embedding them so deep into your business DNA that they can't be stripped away when the headlines move on.

That requires something most brands are allergic to: genuine discomfort.

No, you don't need to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars or get arrested. But you do need to be willing to show up even when it's uncomfortable. Even when there's potential backlash. Even when it might hurt short-term profits.

Because when you stand up for something greater than profit, you build something far more valuable than any influencer campaign: genuine brand loyalty and trust.

Performative activism makes a good Instagram story.

Authentic activism stands the test of time.

The era of neutral brands is over. Your customers have decided that for you. Adapt to this reality, or watch them choose brands that will.