CORQ’s AI technology scanned 43,000 posts from 15,000 influencer channels across September 2025 looking for content about optimism. It surfaced 36 posts which reflect the Oxford Dictionary’s definition: “hopefulness and confidence about the future or the success of something”.
Admittedly, 36 posts in 43,000 is not very much. In fact, it means just 0.08% of influencer content published in September was optimistic. However, the top ten posts alone achieved 3.7 million views, 115,800 likes, 8,500 shares and 1,200 comments. The audience for optimism and desire for creators who embody this as a trait is emerging, and this is a strong position for brands to be aware of moving into 2026.
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But what does it mean? Reviewing content surfaced by CORQ AI, optimism in the context of creators is a sense of positive agency. The idea that you have the power to achieve happiness and the confidence tomorrow will be better. It is also resilience, and an understanding that perfection is at odds with an optimistic outlook. Some days will be good, others will be bad – the latter should not cancel out the former. Hope for the future is linked to love, parenting and looking back to appreciate one’s own progress, which catalyses a strong belief in what is possible moving forward. Relatable optimism, even when it’s misguided, is also a highly engaging narrative.
Optimism as a challenge
Adopting optimism as a stance for a brand is a delicate thing. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 reported in its poll of 33,000 consumers worldwide that just 36% of respondents believe life will improve for the next generation. Narrow this down to people surveyed in developed countries and the figure drops to 20%.
However, it is possible consumers are reacting to what they are being served. Endless headlines suggesting the global inevitability of far-right politics and divided societies has led to news avoidance being at a record high. An annual survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found 40% of those polled sometimes or often avoid the news. Relentless impending doom understandably leads to a sense of individual powerlessness, especially when no one is providing an alternative vision of what the future could look like.
Optimism as a creator mission
Perhaps it’s frustration, perhaps it’s a desire to communicate that a positive outlook is possible. Either way, creators and people with influence are taking things into their own hands and optimism is cutting through.
This week alone, Munya Chawawa shared his Black Boys Theatre Club has been running for a year and facilitated 120 boys experiencing shows. The announcement was accompanied by a poem, performed by Jordan Stephens, Ariyon Bakare and more. Then, actor Stephen Graham and author Orla Klein launched their project “Letters To Our Sons”, asking fathers to send letters to their sons about what it means to be a man for a new book published by Bloomsbury.
@munyachawawa A poem to celebrate the launch of Black Boys Theatre Club 🎭❤️ #theatre#musical#bbtc
Again, this is not about idealism or perfection but optimism through a desire for love, honesty and togetherness. Their post announcing the project reads: “We want to hear from men of all ages, first-time fathers, divorced fathers, step-fathers, absent fathers, fathers who’ve been there but never truly been there, fathers who’ve lost and fathers who just want to find a way to say ‘I love you’, to tell their sons what they mean to them.”
For brands strategising for 2026, working with creators who have an optimistic outlook is smart positioning. Not just because it’s driving audience engagement and has the potential to make a bigger splash across the media. But because it suggests you have the power to offer a sense of enjoyment and hope, and in today’s fraught world, that’s something everyone aspires to.
By Sara McCorquodale, CEO and founder of CORQ.
