Faith in Humanity Restored

About

Faith in Humanity Restored is an expression indicating an event or good deed has improved one’s outlook on the overall ethical standards of human beings. The phrase can be seen as the antithesis of I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

Origin

On October 3rd, 2000, a post titled “Nice Things That Restore my Faith in Humanity” was submitted to the writing database Everything2^[7] by user Nailbunny, featuring a short story about a heartfelt phone call from a close friend.

Freddie Mercury Rage Pose

“Faith in humanity has been restored” is often associated with the Freddie Mercury Rage Pose image (shown below.

Spread

On April 5th, 2007, Livejournal^[15] user salaroo submitted a post to the “We Huge Sloths” community titled “My faith in humanity has been restored,” which celebrated the adoption of a sloth. On August 31st, 2010, a TV Tropes page for “Restored My Faith in Humanity”^[8] was created, which associated the theme with the “Rousseau Was Right” and “Humans Are Good”^[9] tropes. On September 3rd, a series of photos featuring a man rescuing a drowning dog (shown below) were highlighted on the Internet humor blog Ned Hardy.^[11]

On December 8th, the “Random Acts of Pizza” subreddit was created with the slogan “Restoring Faith in Humanity, One Slice at a Time.” On February 13th, 2012, a Facebook^[1] page titled “Faith in Humanity: Restored” was launched, gaining more than 11,000 likes in the next two years. On June 20th, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[5] published a round-up of “21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity,” which received upwards of 12.9 million views and 17,000 Facebook shares in the first 10 months. On August 27th, the Internet humor site Cracked published an article titled “6 True Stories That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.” On December 14th, BuzzFeed^[6] published another photo compilation titled “26 Moments That Restored Our Faith in Humanity This Year,” accumulating over 7.4 million views and 542,000 Facebook shares in the following five months. The same day, the Internet humor blog Smosh^[13] published a similar photo compilation titled “24 Photos That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.”