The second we realised the “2016 is again” factor had slipped out of our arms was not when journalists began writing explainers, or when social media stuffed up with throwback posts, however when Charlie Puth, now properly into his thirties, posted a selfie video utilizing the Rio de Janeiro Instagram filter and handled it like a realizing wink, full with the lazy caption “Heard it was 2016 once more”. Instagram’s official account replied, calling it “elite ball information”, which solely made it worse. Anybody who truly belonged to that second, who had a extra unique contextual reference for it, may inform instantly that this was not intimate or remembered, however merely pretentious and performative (each phrases popularised by Gen Z ), and a traditional case of development hopping.It has since hardened right into a template, mislabelled as a generic throwback development, which was by no means what it was. Within the first week of 2026, searches for “2016” jumped by 452% on TikTok, with over 55 million movies now utilizing 2016-themed filters and the #2016 hashtag passing 37 million posts on Instagram. Watching it get absorbed by the mainstream is quietly dispiriting, not as a result of it’s unsuitable, however as a result of one thing that when had a pointy, specific edge now feels diluted and broadly replicated.The present “2016 is the brand new 2026” development says way more about who’s taking part in it than in regards to the 12 months itself. The loudest voices driving this wave are inclined to belong to individuals who have been both too younger to expertise 2016 correctly, or sufficiently old that it handed by way of their lives with out leaving a lot of a mark. The irony is tough to overlook: the folks most keen to elucidate what 2016 was are sometimes those who didn’t actually get it on the time.There’s a particular group, often bundled below the label Gen Z, (regardless that that tag has since been stretched, diluted and slapped onto quite a lot of criminally cringe behaviour) that fashioned a shared understanding of 2016 lengthy earlier than it hardened right into a development. I’m speaking in regards to the earlier cohort, not the Gen Alpha adjacency that now will get folded into the identical lazy shorthand. We didn’t conform to the label then and most of us nonetheless don’t now. If something, we might slightly stay unlabelled, barely allergic to being categorised in any respect. But when we’re being exact, it was these of us born roughly between 1998 and 2002, perhaps stretching a 12 months or two on both facet, who truly lived the model of 2016 that’s now being remembered and repackaged, not as a result of we predict it was inherently higher than different years, removed from it, a 12 months in some ways as damaged, and messy as another, however as a result of we exaggerated it to see it by way of rose-coloured lenses, or extra precisely, the Rio de Janeiro filter, and bolstered it relentlessly by way of memes and inside references.We have been those who made 2016 a reference level. We have been the primary to romanticise it. With out us, the 12 months wouldn’t exist in its present mythologised kind; it might be simply one other entry within the calendar.What issues right here shouldn’t be the 12 months itself however the lens by way of which it was remembered, a lens cast by a really particular on-line tradition, dominated by a selected pressure of Gen Z exceptionally good at producing area of interest references, for which being chronically on-line and a part of a selected classic with the lived, working information of web lore was a prerequisite.For this group, 2016 existed in dialog, in memes, in the best way references bounced between feeds and feedback, layered and under-explained. It lived in a choose few echo chambers, by no means escaping to the mainstream, slowly collected and bolstered because the algorithm constructed its world brick by brick. References appeared in sure corners, dry, ironic, coded for individuals who belonged, and just for this group did they carry that means. By round 2022, because the world staggered out of the pandemic, the 12 months started to tackle extra sense. 2016 turned symbolic of a pre-Covid utopia, and the gestures lastly gained some type of actual rationalization slightly than remaining unexplained fragments stripped of context. The visible artefacts got here later, virtually as educating aids. The Rio de Janeiro filter. Pokémon Go. Bottle flipping. Fidget spinners. The Chainsmokers’ album covers. These weren’t the rationale 2016 caught; they have been chosen afterwards as a result of they have been broadly skilled sufficient to perform as shared reference factors. Inside the unique group, none of that was required. Outdoors it, these cues helped approximate a sense that had already been established.This is the reason the present media fixation on figuring out what “made” 2016 feels so off. Yearly has pop stars, scandals, deaths, debuts, elections. If these have been sufficient, we might be doing this train yearly. The distinction is that this specific cohort, previous Gen Z, if you wish to name it that, earlier than the label turned unusable, had each the meme literacy and the timing to show a obscure, collective feeling right into a repeatable reference. We did it mockingly, with out making an attempt to canonise something. As with many issues that group touched, it escaped containment and went mainstream.Now you’ve media retailers desperately making an attempt to reverse-engineer the sensation, itemizing Zara Larsson songs, Zayn and Gigi, Trump’s first marketing campaign, Vine dying, Tumblr aesthetics, One Course’s remaining excursions, Marvel films, Stranger Issues, even the early-wave Fortnite dances, as if swapping out the forged would change something. It wouldn’t. Substitute the celebrities. Substitute the albums. Substitute the headlines. The longing would survive. It’s much less about what occurred than about how we collectively felt it, and the way that feeling was captured, coded, and carried ahead by a gaggle of people that have been on-line sufficient to note it within the first place. As soon as that occurred, the that means shifted. When celebrities now put up filtered movies and captions about “lacking 2016”, it reads much less like remembrance and extra like bandwagoning. Not as a result of they’re unsuitable to really feel nostalgic, however as a result of they’re arriving at one thing that was by no means meant to be staged so explicitly. What was as soon as a shared shorthand has turn into an aesthetic, and aesthetics are straightforward to mimic with out understanding. To be clear, this isn’t about gatekeeping a 12 months. Everybody lived by way of 2016 in their very own approach. However not everybody contributed to the model of 2016 that now circulates on-line. With out that particular group, folks simply younger sufficient to be forming identities, simply sufficiently old to be culturally fluent, and on-line in a approach that also felt communal slightly than optimised, the 12 months wouldn’t exist as a fantasy in any respect. It will be one other blurry cease between earlier than and after.2016 has taken on a lifetime of its personal, and there’s little level in making an attempt to pin it down. Celebrities, algorithms, throwbacks, it doesn’t matter. However for the choose few who noticed it first, we watch with a little bit of unhappiness, realizing it has escaped us and entered the world by itself phrases. And maybe it’s not so unhealthy, in any case, it might be worse if nobody remembered 2016 in any respect.
