Pop Culture Icons: Superman and Zara Larsson

From the blockbuster movie Superman to Zara Larsson's new album Midnight Sun, hope and creativity are alive and well. In this episode of Creative Mode, Annie explores themes of self belief and optimism in media and pop culture. Learn how "Hopecore" and the Alive Internet Theory are shaping online narratives and inspiring human creativity.

Key insights:

• Hope is punk.
• Kindness is rebellion.
• Self belief is your superpower.
• The internet belongs to humans, not tech companies.

What inspiring themes have you found in pop culture? Text me at the link above! 📱

Insta: @anniezomaya

links:

The Year Superhero Movies Turned to Hope

Alive Internet Theory - Struthless

Alive Internet Theory - Ali Gallop

Creative Mode is a weekly show about pop culture and creativity. Each week we discuss the most iconic moments in pop culture and media, exploring artistic themes and drawing inspiration for our own creative journeys. 

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Transcript

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The truth is, we get to create our own adventure. Your life is a create your own adventure story. Your craft, your art, it's all a create your own adventure story. Hello and welcome to episode four of the show. I'm your host, Annie Somaya, and this is Creative Mode. Today I want to talk about the return of Hope and Hope Core in 2025 as seen in pop culture and pop media. So to start off, I want to talk about the Superman movie, which came out this summer. I absolutely loved it. And my thesis statement for this episode is that I feel like the Superman movie in some way reset our timeline back to before the pandemic. I know that sounds crazy. Here's what I mean by that. I feel like ever since early 2020, quarantine, lockdown, social distancing, things have just felt off. People have been more distant. Kindness hasn't been as readily available. And there's just generally been this sense of doom and gloom that I've felt just almost everywhere I go, except for like in my really, really tight circles where I feel a lot of love and warmth. But I feel like something about this movie, just collectively, at least for the people that watched it and enjoyed it, kind of gave us a renewed sense of hope. And it was really refreshing. So I'm not gonna rehash the entire story of the movie, but there was generally this narrative of hope and redemption and kindness and doing what you feel is right and going against the status quo. And there's a really pivotal piece of dialogue in the movie where Lois tells Superman, you think everyone you meet is beautiful, and he says, Well, maybe that's the real punk rock. And that right there was turned into like a million shorts and memes and all kinds of things and people interpreting it in their own ways and applying it to their own things. But I think that statement really says more than what you hear on the surface. I really think that statement means more than what it looks like on the surface. Because when we think about something that's punk or punk rock, it's a counterculture, right? It goes against the larger narrative, it goes against the establishment. So to say that finding the beauty in people is punk rock, that kindness is punk rock, that following your heart is punk rock, I think that really just reminded us all that those things are not soft, they're not weak, and we can be ourselves and we can see the good in ourselves and the good in others, and we can do our best, putting one foot in front of the other every day and just doing what we think is right, even though there's no instructions. We're all living for the first time. So who's to say what's really right and wrong? But as long as we're following our heart, not hurting people, and doing our best to help those in our community. That today, in a world where the large message, at least where I'm at in the US, when you turn on the news or in the media, is doomerism and this bad thing just happened and this bad thing is going to happen. To find hope and to find beauty in the things around you, that is actually pretty punk rock. And I actually made a TikTok around the time that the movie came out and said, maybe the real punk rock is trying new things and letting yourself mess up and being okay with it along the way, or something along those lines. And it got a pretty good response, and that really made me feel happy because I think a lot of us feel that way, that there are things that we want to try, but we're afraid of messing up, we're afraid of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, or afraid of being seen trying and getting it wrong that we don't actually do anything and we don't actually follow our hearts and do what our hearts are telling us to do and expressing ourselves. Again, I feel like the Superman movie was just a really pivotal point in the timeline and not just the DC timeline, but like our timeline in 2025. And I feel like after that there was just like so much more positivity on like my social feeds and things like that. And of course, that's because I'm curating it, I'm curating my own algorithm or whatever, but I still feel like it lit something up, and I think that was really good. And then I started to find these themes in other pieces of media, and you know, there's that saying that if you look for something, you'll find it. So maybe, maybe that's what this is, but it's still a good thing, right? Like I'm still finding bright spots in the media that I'm consuming. And to quote an article from Inverse, the context of this article talks about the geopolitical climate today and some of the similarities which the director claims are not real between what's going on in the world this year and this movie. Anyway, here's the quote Superman's mild lawlessness in the name of kindness strikes a similar chord. It doesn't have to be a political one, but instead a sort of aesthetic choice. In both the text and subtext of Superman, there's an assumption that being honest and kind isn't part of the establishment. Being good is no longer the norm. And so, in a world of cruelty, Superman's kindness becomes an act of rebellion. And then, of course, at the very end of the movie, this was like such a high for me. It plays Iggy Pop's punk rocker. I don't know, man. I was feeling it like 10 out of 10. I was like, oh my gosh, I love this movie. And then that song was everywhere on TikTok and it's really upbeat and it's got a really positive message. So I absolutely loved that. And then another song that was in DC Media this year was The Foxy Shazam's Oh Lord. It was featured on Peacemaker. It was actually part of the opening credits. And the Foxy Shazam is actually a real band, and I think what I really liked about them is they kind of sound like Queen to me, and I absolutely love Queen. The lyrics say there will always be a wrong to your right. Keep on keeping on. The entire message and the beat is just so like uplifting. So if you haven't heard that song, you should definitely listen to it. Another kind of hope core theme that I found recently in media was in episode four of Stranger Things Five. Spoiler alert, Stranger Things season five. The scene where we see Will finally come into his full power as the sorcerer. At the end of episode four, Will starts remembering a conversation that he had previously with Robin, and she's sharing with him how she was able to come to love herself and everything that she is. And he's reflecting on that conversation. And then we also see memories from his childhood when he was young and carefree before the world told him who he's supposed to be. And so he just finds it within himself to stop being afraid of who he really is, to embrace who he really is, and that's when he's able to unleash his full power. So there's that theme again of just like loving yourself and leaning into who you really are, especially when the world wants to tell you who you're supposed to be. And that's really the message that it's sending to believe in yourself, to love yourself, and to back yourself. And that's how you're gonna unlock your full power. So that's gonna bring me into some nonfiction media that I want to share with you. And this is from the YouTube channel Struthless, and this is from the video The Alive Internet Theory. Now, if you haven't heard of the dead internet theory, it's the belief that most of the interactions on the internet come from bots. So half of the comments that you see online and articles are written by AI or bots. So the alive internet theory is a little bit punk rock in that it counters that and it posits that no, actually, there are a lot of real people still using the internet, and we still have the power, we still have the upper hand to make the internet what we want it to be. And in this video, Campbell, who is the host of This Truthless Channel, talks about why it's important to back yourself, especially today when we are just fed so much doom on our feeds and we get sucked into scrolling social media and it's just constant negativity. Backing yourself and rejecting all of that is actually an act of rebellion in its own way. He also says that existential problems are solved with creativity. And this was my favorite line: the opposite of depression is expression. How powerful is that? And this video was actually inspired by Ollie Gallup's video, The Alive Internet Theory. And in that video, he suggests that the internet doesn't belong to tech companies, it still belongs to real people in our experience, and we get to choose not only what we interact with and what we consume, but what we fill the internet with. That video is kind of a short form hope core video that he calls a tribute to the internet we fell in love with. I'll include a link so you can watch it. Maybe it'll give you a pick-me-up today. And it all comes back to this message of hope is punk. Being a hopeful person, being a kind person, believing in yourself, backing yourself, expressing yourself. Those things are punk rock. They're rebellious, especially today, because there's so much conformity, there's so much pressure to fit into a box or believe a certain narrative about yourself and your experience. The truth is we get to kind of create our own adventure. The internet is a create your own adventure story. Your life is a create your own adventure story. Your craft, your art, it's all a create your own adventure story. So if you can step away from this fear of who you really are and what you want to say and extending the best of yourself to others with generosity and also giving yourself generosity when you need it, that's a big part of it too. I recently read Wherever You Go, There You Are by John Cabot Zinn. And it's a book on mindfulness, and there's a chapter on generosity that really stuck with me, and it talks about generosity of spirit, not just generosity of money. And there's a section in the book that says, give more than you think you have, give as if you have inexhaustible wealth. This is called Kingly Giving. And I have been repeating those lines to myself on the daily to remind myself when I get impatient with myself or other people, or even sometimes with my pets when they're not acting the way I think they should be acting, to give a little bit more patience, give a little bit more loving kindness than I think I can spare. And I always have plenty. I always have plenty left over. It pushes you to extend a little bit more warmth to the people around you and to yourself. So just to wrap up, I want to talk about Zara Larsen, who is a pop star from Sweden. And even if you don't know her name, you do know her songs. So I just wanna be part of your symphony. You've heard that song, I know you have, and you've probably seen the TikTok trend where people were using the Lisa Frank aesthetic and just putting like random text over it, and that really blew the song up again last, I believe it was last summer. Anyway, this year, Zara Larson released a brand new album called Midnight Sun, and the title track is actually an homage to her homeland and the north of Sweden, where in the summer the sun never sets. So the midnight sun. For her in the song, she talks about how it represents protection and freedom and connection and just everything beautiful about summertime. And even though it's not summer now, I feel like that message is still really helpful and important. It can be a season of blooming and creation and light anytime you get to decide, create your own adventure. But there's also another track on this album called Saturn, and it's about your Saturn returning. In astrology, that means that Saturn returns to the same position that it was when you were born. I'm not really a big astrology person, but I do I can acknowledge that when I was in my late 20s, I did feel like I had gone through some kind of transformation where I just felt like things started falling back into place for me and I was starting to really find myself and forge my own path. And that's what this song is kind of about. So there's a line where she sings, it feels so good to know I don't know what I'm doing. Could be wrong, could be right, but this song is mine. So if you are in your late 20s, early 30s, go listen to Saturn. I think it might really resonate with you like it did with me. Maybe not, but it's still a beautiful message, I think, about trusting yourself even when you don't know what's coming next. And really just kind of goes back to that theme of doing your best and being true to yourself. And for the Midnight Sun music video, Zara Larson actually embraced the TikTok meme and kind of the Lisa Frank color palette with these bright neon colors and just fun and girliness, and it's just this whole aesthetic that really was kind of refreshing to see because I feel like there's so much black and white and gray and beige and everything's so monochromatic, like in media and in stores. And what happened to color? Are we allergic to color? Like new buildings go up and they're all the same shape and size and color. And then, of course, Pantone just released the color of the year for 2026, which is Cloud Dancer, and it's really just an offshade of white. And I know a lot of people are usually disappointed with the color of the year every year. This year I think it is warranted because what do you mean the color of the year is white? And to be honest with you, I do dabble in graphic design, so I should probably know more about Pantone and who they are and what they do. All I know is that every year they tell us a color of the year, and then it supposedly affects fashion and product design for the following year because that color is supposed to be like what everyone wants. Who gives them the right to tell us what to want? But anyway, I see on Instagram and online that people are wholly rejecting cloud dancer slash white as color of the year, and I'm here for it. I think we need to embrace color. We need to stop being afraid of color. Maybe your color of the year is something louder. Maybe your color of the year is something more unique or something that has a higher meaning for you. Final message embrace your colorful, be kind, give more than you think you have, even and especially unto yourself. Do whatever you need to do to keep hope alive. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'll catch you again next week.