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Well, it's the start of a brand new year – but instead of planning for the future and looking ahead, all anyone seems to want to do is to go back. Back to a happier, simpler time. A time when social media was a pleasant sea of cool toned purple filters and grainy iPhone SE pics; when “Closer” by the Chainsmokers or Beyoncé's Lemonade blared peacefully from our (stringed) Apple headphones; when we returned to Stars Hollow and collectively whined about Rory's fate; when we first met the gang in Hawkins, Indiana; when getting ready for the day meant a swipe of cat eyeliner, a skater skirt and cute little choker. I am talking about an ephemeral moment in time known as 2016.
What is the 2016 trend?
Thanks to a new TikTok hazy purple-blue filter inspired by the year, 2016 is suddenly all the rage. According to TikTok, searches for "2016" went up by 452% in the last week, while 1.6 million videos fondly embracing the 2016 aesthetic have already been uploaded.
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My initial thought is… wait, wasn't 2016, like, three years ago? Nope. The last decade included an entire pandemic, two terms of Trump, Brexit and the fall of Twitter to make way for AI slop social media, though, so maybe I've been disassociating for the past ten years and am refusing to believe time is actually passing! In fact, looking back, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that 2016 was our last hopeful year – and we've all been clinging to it.
There was a lot going on in 2016 (or at least early 2016) that made us feel more confident about the future than perhaps we should have. Am I wrong, or were things actually fun in 2016?
For one thing, 2016 wasn't a pre-social media year, but it was a time when social media still felt vaguely personalised and safe. You actually saw updates from your friends rather than a cacophony of screaming, angry strangers and bots. Celebrities still shared to social media platforms as if they were Whatsapping their bestie, posting silly selfies that would cause immediate discourse if shared today.
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The trend has picked up so much traction online that even huge stars like Hailey Bieber are sharing their favourite snaps from the era, flower crowns and all. Famously, 2016 was Hailey's bestie Kylie Jenner's ‘King Kylie’ phase, a time when her feed was less focused on curated brand deals and more about channelling her fun, creative side. She'd share selfies of her wearing colourful wigs, partying with friends and modelling streetwear like Supreme that racked up millions of likes on Tumblr. She recently shared a carousel of throwback images that perfectly sum up how casual and light-hearted a time 2016 really was.
Maybe the most crucial part of social media in 2016, was that the concept of the doomscroll hadn't yet crossed our minds — minds which were still vaguely intact with serviceable attention spans.
“Even though algorithms were already in use, platforms like Facebook and Instagram mostly showed posts from people you chose to follow,” Chartered Clinical Psychologist Tracy King tells me. “Feeds were more about relationships than reactions, so people saw familiar faces, daily updates, jokes and shared moments. This kind of content helped people feel connected and safe, and scrolling did not feel as emotionally draining.”
Social media began to shift into its current form in 2017. “Posts that made people feel strong emotions like anger or fear were shown more often because they kept users clicking and scrolling,” King says. "After 2019, with apps like TikTok and the rise of short videos, this trend grew even stronger. These quick, personalised videos are designed to grab attention, often by using controversy or conflict. As a result, people now spend more time in digital spaces filled with emotional content they did not choose themselves."
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Social media also didn't feel like something isolating us, but rather, something that could bring us together. Take, for instance, the Pokémon Go fad, which took people outside into the real world. “Pokémon Go, which launched in July 2016, is a clear example of why that year feels special,” King notes. "It made technology feel connecting instead of isolating. Looking back, this is the opposite of what people felt during the pandemic, when movement and social contact were limited, and daily life felt more separated."
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Politics also felt vaguely hopeful. No one (at least no one in the left-leaning bubbles we all seemed to live in) really believed that Brexit or the rise of Trump would become a reality. No, instead, we believed that we were on the cusp of the first female president and a satisfying quashing of the creeping threat of the far right.
2016 was, King says, the year before politics became defined by questions of identity and emotional manipulation. “These events turned complicated political issues into questions about personal identity and belonging," King says. “In the UK, the Brexit vote turned a complex topic into a simple choice, which quickly became tied to class, location, education and culture. In the US, the election made politics feel like a fight between 'ordinary people' and elites, fuelling blame and exclusion. In both countries, arguments became less about policies and more about identity and values, which feels more personal and threatening.”
When we look back to 2016, it might be the last time that public life felt shared – and even if that was something of an illusion, hope reigned.
Perhaps it's also worth noting for the adults in the room that 2016 probably fell during those hopeful early adult years. “Many millennials were in late teens or early adulthood, a stage when people form their identities, become more independent, build deeper relationships and start to picture their futures,” she says. In other words, the future was still full of possibility.
According to King, our sense of nostalgia for 2016 is less about wanting to actually regress, and more about “trying to reconnect with a sense of meaning, continuity and self-understanding that feels harder to access in the present.”
Our generation may feel particularly nostalgic for those early adulthood years because – well – the last ten years didn't exactly go to plan – on both the global and personal scales. “It's about missing a path into adulthood that was often interrupted. Instead of growth and new choices, adulthood started to mean coping and surviving much sooner than expected,” she says.
“Now, 2016 stands out as a turning point, just before big changes began to reshape daily life and how people felt as a group,” she says.
Because, of course, we didn't know a pandemic was coming to tear us even further apart ideologically and financially. That fear would become the governing political motivator. That technology would keeping pushing and pushing us towards becoming automatons ourselves. That reels and TikTok would become our only pastime and the dead-eyed thumb swipe our primary function. If you haven't felt hope in 10 years, there are more than a few good reasons why.
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“There is a quiet sense of loss wrapped up in this nostalgia,” says King. “People are not saying that 2016 was perfect. They are saying that life felt more manageable, more connected and more human. The world still felt like something you could move through without constant tension or alertness.”
Perhaps, that 2016 TikTok filter can help to bring back some of that hope we lost. “Nostalgia is not just about seeing the past as better, but about finding direction in the present,” says King. "It reminds people that meaning, connection and hope were once easy to find, and even if they are harder to reach now, those memories can help keep hope alive for the future."
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