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From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n
Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRead more<\/span><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe first two weeks of 2026 have launched a nostalgic trend across the internet as social media users attempt to turn back the clock with lo-fi-filtered throwbacks captioned, \u201c2026 is the new 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social media users scrolling Instagram or TikTok in the past few weeks have been likely to stumble upon posts showing off intensely carved eyebrows with a puppy dog Snapchat filter, or grainy iPhone pictures of people playing Pok\u00e9mon Go as people lament the decade gone by.<\/p>\n
Since the new year began, social media feeds have been overwhelmed with evidence of people scouring through their 10-year-old digital archives to share recap carousels and low-quality videos of the bygone era. <\/p>\n
TikTok reported that in the first week of the year, searches for \u201c2016\u201d surged by 452 percent on the platform, according to the BBC<\/em>. More than 56 million videos have been made using a hazy filter on the app inspired by the year.<\/p>\nCelebrities and influencers have joined in on the trend as well. Selena Gomez posted throwback pictures of herself on tour at the time, and Charlie Puth posted a video of himself lip-syncing his hit song from that year, \u201cWe Don\u2019t Talk Anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Beyonc\u00e9, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift were responsible for some of the radio hits and cultural hot topic moments that made up 2016. Now, the year is making a comeback on social media (Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nSo, why 2016? In addition to marking the 10-year anniversary, the year was momentous for pop culture phenomenons \u2014 Beyonc\u00e9 released Lemonade, <\/em>Taylor Swift debuted her bleached hair at Coachella and Rae Sremmurd\u2019s \u201cBlack Beatles\u201d inspired the viral Mannequin Challenge. The Chainsmokers and Drake were dominating on the radio, and short-form video platform Vine was still wildly popular before the app shut down in January 2017.<\/p>\nBut there is more to the \u201c2026 is the new 2016\u201d trend than maximalist aesthetics and cultural touchstones. Internet users seem to be jumping at the opportunity to reminisce on a simpler world than the one that exists now.<\/p>\n
In 2016, the coronavirus pandemic was still years away. Two terms of Donald Trump as president were only on the horizon. AI-generated slop had yet to flood social media with misinformation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould love to return to life in 2016,\u201d one X user wrote about the trend. Another chimed in, \u201cMan, what a time to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
But while the rose-tinted trend might paint 2016 as the calm before the storm,The Independent\u2019s<\/em> Katie Rosseinsky argued that people participating in the trend are forgetting that the year had struggles just like any other year, including the Pulse Nightclub shooting and the deaths of beloved cultural icons including Prince, David Bowie and Carrie Fisher.<\/p>\nRosseinsky wrote, \u201cThis reinvention of 2016 as some kind of joyous pinnacle, then, proves our relentless capacity for nostalgia, the ability to transform even the bad times into something worthy of reminiscing over from a distance of just a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more The first two weeks of 2026 have launched a nostalgic trend across the internet as social media users attempt to turn back the clock with lo-fi-filtered throwbacks captioned, \u201c2026 is the new 2016.\u201d Social media users scrolling Instagram or TikTok in the past few weeks have been likely to stumble upon posts showing off intensely carved eyebrows with a puppy dog Snapchat filter, or grainy iPhone pictures of people playing Pok\u00e9mon Go as people lament the decade gone by. Since the new year began, social media feeds have been overwhelmed with evidence of people scouring through their 10-year-old digital archives to share recap carousels and low-quality videos of the bygone era. TikTok reported that in the first week of the year, searches for \u201c2016\u201d surged by 452 percent on the platform, according to the BBC. More than 56 million videos have been made using a hazy filter on the app inspired by the year. Celebrities and influencers have joined in on the trend as well. Selena Gomez posted throwback pictures of herself on to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}