The Snapchat dog filter. Skinny Jeans. Heavy contour and eyebrows. Justin Bieber. Yep, weāve gone back to 2016.
The beginning of 2026 marked a decade since this seemingly iconic year, sparking a new trend on social media. #2016 saw over 38 million posts across TikTok and Instagram in the first two weeks of this year alone (ABC News), and the phrase ā2026 is the new 2016ā quickly spread. Users took the opportunity to share photos of themselves in 2016 for this trend, often accompanied with music from that year.
But why do we look back on that year with such nostalgia? With every generation seemingly romanticising the last, nostalgia for past decades is by no means a new phenomenon. However, some have questioned how and why this intense, viral wave of nostalgia has occurred for a year which was only a decade ago. Part of the reason is of course simply the romanticisationĀ of our collective youth. The most popular age group to use social media is 16-24 year olds (Statista), and therefore looking back a decade to when they were children rather than navigating their current young adulthood might seem comforting.
However, many claim that this trend is less about general nostalgia and instead that 2016 was āthe last good yearā. When looking at global politics,Ā we can see where this rhetoric is coming from ā both the Brexit vote and Trumpās first election were in 2016, with the effects of these decisions properly felt in the years that followed. Of course, 2016 also marks an era where the vast majority of the world population were not used to hearing the word āpandemicā, and the words āTik Tokā simply brought to mind a (super catchy) Ke$ha song. So yes, it feels like a lot has changed since 2016, with the world dealing with not only these polarising political climates, but also the coronavirus and new technology changing the way that people interact forever ā no one was asking you to āhop on a Teams callā in 2016.
This kind of idealisation of the past is not unique to 2016, but part of a much wider cultural pattern of romanticising history. For example, if we look at how much the 80s and 90s are glamourised, with fashion trends and music during these decades labelled as iconic, despite how these years were marked by issues such as the AIDS crisis, the Cold War and The Troubles (to name a few). Yet these years are viewed as ‘better’ despite these events and how overall attitudes towards women and minority groups were objectively far less progressive than they are today, with many landmark rights such as gay marriage still being far off in the future.
So perhaps we want to go back to 2016 for two reasons. Firstly, we are undoubtedly feeling the weight of living in a politically polarising age. The increasing prevalence of social media and AI not only creates uncertainty for the future, but also exposes us to a constant barrage of world events and crises at all times, and therefore the world feels more overwhelming than it did a decade ago. But also, we will always long for the innocence of our youth, no matter what the decade, and view the past through rose coloured glasses (and sometimes a Snapchat dog filter).