Home / Inspiring

Artist Tired of Reading Bad News Illustrates the Good Things That Happened in 2018

By Sara Barnes on December 27, 2018

Italian illustrator Mauro Gatti is tired of reading bad news. And he’s not alone; almost seven in 10 Americans, for instance, experience “news fatigue,” exhausted by both the sheer amount of information and how foreboding it can be. To help combat this, Gatti is using his artistic skills as a way to spread positivity. His Instagram account, The Happy Broadcast, aims to “counter hate and fear culture” by illustrating heartwarming stories from around the world.

“I wanted to create something positive as an anti-venom to the vitriolic rhetoric that pervades our media,” Gatti explains. For The Happy Broadcast, he selects good news about the environment, human rights, healthcare, and beyond—the subject matter has no limits as long as it conveys an optimistic story. Pairing minimalist line drawings with brightly-colored backgrounds, Gatti has since produced illustrations about the improving literacy rates worldwide, the doubling of Nepal’s wild tigers, and how Americans gave over four billion dollars to charity in 2017. In each of his Instagram posts, Gatti lists the source of these stories like CNN and the BBC.

“We have progressed in so many categories,” Gatti implores, “and it’s necessary to let the world know that, despite having much more to do, we’ve accomplished some amazing things in 2018.” For more good news and a reprieve from the typical headlines, follow The Happy Broadcast on Instagram. It’ll make your 2019 a little brighter.