What does 2016 have that 2026 does not?
Rainbow bagel and Pink Drink in hand, you are slouched on the sofa: Pretty Little Liars final episodes are airing and you are spiraling over 5-year-jump fan theories to figure out who A really is.
You hear the doorbell. Huh? You check your phone: palm trees background staring back at you, no one has texted you.
You are wearing your light-brown Uggs, denim shorts and off-the-shoulder shirt. It’ll do. You put your hair up in a messy bun and you walk down the stairs to find out your mom has sold you to One direction. Life is great.
For anyone confused (or concerned), since the new year has begun, a huge nostalgia has taken over millennials and gen Z, remembering, posting and mourning 2016. Yep, that was 10 years ago.
Golden age of Wattpad, flower crowns on everyone’s head, Pokémon Go bringing humanity the closest we have ever been to world peace, 2016 is being remembered as the year.
Vibes? #Onfleek: Snapchat dog-filter, very very high saturated pictures (VSCO was top-tier, c’mon), aliens and galaxy prints on literally everything (better than the moustache aesthetic I guess?); chokers, colored hair and tumblr as peak lifestyle and aesthetic; Musical.ly dances, transitions and lip-syncs; the bottle flip and the mannequin challenge freezing everyone in random places. It was sort of giving main character energy and #baddie before it was even a thing. Somehow, everyone was an icon and “crazy” (why did we have an obsession with that word?) at the same time.
a huge nostalgia has taken over millennials and gen Z, remembering, posting and mourning 2016. Yep, that was 10 years ago.
Okay, sure, fun. But why 2016? Why this big #tbt to this year specifically? Why not 2015 or 2014, one may ask. Exactly because of that: 2016 was fun. Unapologetically fun, that is.
If these past years have been teaching us that being cool is about minimalism, about being non-chalant and mysterious, in 2016 being cool was about being extra, loud and bold – basically what we would describe now as too much or “cringe”. And to think that that word just was not in our vocabulary back then. Liberating, right? Point is, maybe everyone was indeed kind of cringe (it was the year of dubbing…what even was that?), but no one cared.
Think about it! If 2016 was looking at us now, they would probably think we are somewhat boring. What, with all the colors being gone, rooms not being decorated anymore, social media posts following a certain beige, toned-down pattern, tv-series not having any filler, fun episodes… These past years have molded up generations to get rid of the whimsical, fun aspect of life. Trying to chase the clean, vanilla girl aesthetic, with white (excuse me, “Cloud Dancer”) being the new pantone, it seems like we have lost something in the years. We have turned our personalities into work profiles, our houses into offices. Where has customization go? It looks like there is no place for error anymore, no place to have that thing in your bedroom that yeah, maybe it does look kind of strange, but you like it so who cares?
If 2016 was looking at us now, they would probably think we are somewhat boring.
In 2016, we were stealing our dad’s shaving foam to do glitter slimes. Most of the time it didn’t come out like the Youtube videos (omg…remember VEVO?) were teaching us. To be fair, it was actual pure, sticky chaos. And, guess what? It was okay! We are slowly forgetting that it’s okay to make a little mess in the kitchen just to have fun, just because we can.
It seems like now our generation would go into a spiral for that one – if we start a project that doesn’t go viral, a post that doesn’t earn enough likes. Do we really need those, though? Perhaps we just need to get our hands a little dirty again, to draw something that looks bad, to put a keychain on our bag just because. Life is about being a little extra saturated!
It’s not that 2016 had something that 2026 does not, it’s that 2016 had a space for us, for us being fun and whimsical and strange, that the past years seem to not have anymore. Thing is, we can build that space ourselves.
Maybe this is the year we learn how to be “cringe” again.
