1985 Had “We Are The World.” 2026 Has Burnout, Wars & Instagram Activism.

On collective power, emotional exhaustion, and the quiet hope that humanity remembers itself.

Alright, this is gonna hit a bit differently. I just finished watching The Greatest Night in Pop on Netflix, and honestly… I am not able to stop thinking about it. I clicked on it after seeing a glimpse of Michael Jackson in the teaser, and considering my ongoing obsession with him, I thought let’s just see what this is about. And man, let me tell ya, it. did. not. miss!

Not just because of the music, or because seeing icons like Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper and dozens of others in one room feels almost unreal now.

But because watching it in 2026 feels… strangely emotional, almost painful?

Somewhere between all the voices, the exhaustion, the chaos, the humanity of that night, I kept thinking about the world we live in today, and how disconnected we’ve become from each other DESPITE being more connected than ever.

Back then, they gathered in one room to sing about famine, suffering, and collective responsibility. Today, we scroll past wars while eating dinner, we watch injustice unfold in real time between Instagram stories and TikToks, we absorb tragedy daily to the point where numbness almost becomes a survival mechanism. And yet underneath all of that numbness… I genuinely believe something is shifting. I can feel it, can you?

I truly believe people are waking up, not only emotionally, but also spiritually and morally, or at least this is my hope.

There’s a frustration growing inside so many people right now, this deep awareness that something about the world feels fundamentally broken, unfair, unsustainable… and an equally deep desperation to do something about it. The problem is, most people don’t know where to put that feeling. I sure don’t.

Don’t we just feel so incredibly small, powerless, overwhelmed right now???

I think that’s why We Are the World still hits so hard. Because it reminds us of something we seem to have forgotten:

The people have always been more powerful than the people in power.

The Night That Changed Pop Culture Forever

To give you a bit of background: In January 1985, over 40 of the biggest artists in the world gathered in a Los Angeles studio after the American Music Awards to record We Are the World, a charity single created to raise money for famine relief in Africa. The song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones, and inspired by activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte.

If you watch it on Netflix today, it’s almost unbelievable how they made it happen and how much incredible work actually went into it. And listening to Lionel Richie reminiscing about it as if it was just yesterday is honestly one of the most beautiful parts of the documentary. He takes you with him down memory lane, you almost feel like you were there too.

The goal was simple: use music to help save lives, and somehow… they did. The song became one of the best-selling singles of all time and has raised more than $80 million for humanitarian aid and famine relief efforts since its release.

But what struck me watching the documentary wasn’t only the scale of it, it was the sincerity. You feel it through the screen. And Quincy Jones… I swear I never met the guy, but from everything I’ve read about him and every interview I’ve watched, he genuinely seemed to have one of the kindest hearts. You can feel it in the way he speaks to every single person in that room. If you pay attention to his energy, you can tell how much care went into this, and honestly, into every artist he ever worked with.

These were some of the most famous people on earth leaving their egos at the door, literally as instructed. They were exhausted, but they still showed up voluntarily and stayed until 7AM working on one song they all hoped would unite people.

No social media strategy, no personal branding, no carefully curated activism designed for engagement metrics. Just human beings coming together because they believed they should. And if you ask me, that feels almost radical now. The idea of people coming together on that scale, without ego, branding, personal agendas, or profit attached to it, feels almost impossible today. And maybe that’s the saddest part….

We Have More Access Than Ever - and Somehow Feel More Helpless

You know what I think is one of the strangest things about modern life? It’s that now we have unlimited access to information. We can see all the suffering, injustice, corruption, war, environmental collapse, political instability… we see literally everything. We know waaay too much. Every single day we are confronted with reminders of human suffering happening somewhere in the world.

And psychologically, I genuinely don’t think human beings were built to process this much suffering all at once.

The problem is that we oscillate between hyper-awareness and emotional paralysis. We care deeply, but we don’t know what to do with that care… and that helplessness becomes exhausting.

I think that’s why so many people today feel emotionally overwhelmed all the time. Because underneath our routines, jobs, deadlines, and distractions, there’s this quiet awareness that humanity is at some kind of turning point. You can feel people craving meaning again, community again, purpose again. Something fucking REAL again. Not performative empathy, not hashtags, not outrage cycles that disappear in 48 hours. But actual human connection, actual contribution, actual impact.

And watching The Greatest Night in Pop reminded me that collective action is not some impossible fantasy. It has happened before, we have actual proof.

“We Are the World” Was Never Just a Song

What made We Are the World powerful wasn’t only the music. It was the message underneath it, the belief that ordinary people, and especially influential people, have a responsibility toward one another. The song itself says:

“There’s a choice we’re making. We’re saving our own lives.”

And don’t we realize that maybe that lyric matters now more than ever? Because the truth is, no government, billionaire, celebrity, or institution is going to magically save the world for us.

Real change has always happened when ordinary people collectively decide something is unacceptable.

That’s what made movements powerful.

That’s what made humanitarian efforts powerful.

That’s what made nights like this powerful.

Not fucking perfection, but UNITY. And perhaps that’s the thing we’re starving for most right now, not more content or more consumption. But real connection.

The Frustration of Caring So Much

I think one of the hardest feelings to carry today is caring deeply while feeling ineffective.

Watching people suffer.

Watching wars continue.

Watching cruelty become normalized.

Watching humanity become increasingly desensitised.

It’s sooo fucking exhausting!

And sometimes it genuinely feels like the world rewards selfishness more than compassion. But documentaries like this remind you that sensitivity is not weakness, caring is not weakness, feeling devastated by injustice is not weakness. If anything, it’s proof that some part of your humanity is still intact, and I think many people are beginning to realize that success without humanity feels empty now.

We’re watching an entire generation question everything:

What matters?

What kind of future are we creating?

What does contribution actually mean?

What is success if other people are suffering around us?

Those are spiritual questions whether people realise it or not.

Maybe We’ve Forgotten Our Own Power

One thing this documentary made painfully obvious is how powerful collective belief can become when people genuinely unite behind something bigger than themselves. One song raised millions, one room full of artists created global impact, one moment shifted culture forever.

And now imagine what humanity could do today with the level of communication and access we now have. 

That’s the irony, we are more technologically connected than the people in 1985 could have ever imagined, and yet emotionally, spiritually, socially… Many people feel more disconnected than ever. But I don’t think people are as asleep as they appear, I still think people are exhausted, overstimulated, disillusioned.

But underneath that? I think there is a growing desire to reconnect with something meaningful.

To matter.

To help.

To contribute.

To love people better.

To build something beyond ourselves.

And what if that’s where hope begins? Not in waiting for perfect leaders, but in remembering what human beings are capable of when they stop seeing each other as strangers...

Writer’s Note: Sophia

This documentary genuinely broke something open in me, in a deeply confronting way. While watching all those artists come together for something bigger than themselves, I kept thinking about how disconnected, divided, angry, and exhausted the world feels today. Or maybe it's just my perception of reality? I really don’t know.

And yet at the same time, I also feel this strange shift happening collectively, like people are waking up emotionally. I don’t know how else to explain it. Aren’t we questioning things more, feeling things more, searching for meaning more. Wanting depth, purpose, contribution, truth?

And maybe that’s because deep down, many of us can feel that the way we’ve been living, hyper-individualistic, constantly distracted, emotionally disconnected, is no longer sustainable?

Watching this reminded me how powerful human beings actually are when they come together with sincerity. Not for attention, branding, or optics. But because they genuinely care.

I think a lot of people care right now, and they care deeply, they just don’t know where to place all that emotion. I know I don’t always know either… But maybe conversations like this are part of it, maybe reminding each other of our humanity is part of it, maybe refusing to become emotionally numb is part of it. I don’t know… I just know that when they all started singing We Are the World together… it didn’t feel like a song, it felt like a reminder.