Why are we all so nostalgic for 2016?
A reflection on the 'good ole days'
My feed is flooded with throwbacks from friends and influencers (and brands bc they can’t help themselves) happily sharing photos from what feels like a cultural lifetime ago: 2016.
Naturally, I looked at my own photos from that year and was overwhelmed with the same sense of feel good nostalgia that everyone else is experiencing.
As a romantic, daydreamy type person, I always look at the past in a very rosy hue. But 2016 seems to be deserving of such colored glasses! It’s clear she really was that girl… but why? What made it so?
In 2016 I was 24 and working at my first big-girl job (a 9-to-5). I was a social media coordinator at a boutique agency making $38K a year (lol) but it felt glamorous to me. I got to work with up-and-coming beauty brands and influencers alike, writing captions and blog posts, taking flat lay photos, and getting a peek at the wildly lucrative creator industry.
Working in social at the time placed me even deeper into the zeitgeist of 2016. Here’s a glimpse of what was going on:
Instagram was still highly curated and limited to a single photo per post. Stories came out in August that year. Carousels came out the following. Short-form video didn’t debut on the platform until 2020.
Snapchat released the puppy filter and the “pretty” filter and we went feral for both.
Glossier reigned supreme. An industry disrupter that changed the way we market and shop for beauty products (…all products, for that matter). Did I want Glossier Moisturizer Rich because my southern California skin needed a heavy cream to lock in hydration during the cold 65-degree winter? No, I wanted it because it was f*cking cool and Emily Weiss was the #girlboss who said it was.
The OG super influencers were starting to be taken as seriously as celebrities. Think Shea Marie, Amber Fillerup, Aimee Song, Marianna Hewitt, Chriselle Lim, to name a few.
Millennial pink was everywhere. Same with colorful walls and hand painted angel wings. Puns as captions. Shelfies. Product flatlays. But first, coffee.
Sugar Bear Hair and Flat Tummy Tea were hot. So was FabFitFun (where I went on to work the following year). We loved subscriptions!
Ben was The Bachelor and basically every girl that was on his season became an Instagram influencer: Lauren B, Jojo, Becca Tilley, Amanda Stanton, the Twins, etc. This was the first time this happened… the reality TV to influencer pipeline begins.
While brands were starting to get big on social, Instagram and Snapchat were still platforms you used to
humble bragupdate your friends about your life. Connection was first, consumption was second.
Looking at this snapshot, it seems like the reason 2016 felt special is because we were straddling two timelines. We were still using social media as it was originally intended: to connect, to play, to chat, to update, to seek inspiration. But we were about to step into social media 2.0; the relentless, congested, divisive, omnipresent digital world that we live in now.
2016 was the bridge year. Like Alice right before she fell down the rabbit hole.
Consumption moved at a slower pace, too. I loved Tinx’s take and examples on this (you can watch her video here). But TLDR, the trend cycle was longer because we didn’t see everything, everywhere, all at once!
Your Favorite Influencer™ had a single still photo to sell you something. Or maybe an aesthetic series of three still photos. Now that same influencer is selling you something 5x a day on 5 different platforms.
When I asked ChatGPT (we’re cooked) how to become a successful influencer in 2026, this is what it suggested:
Essentially, never stop filming and posting and commenting and tagging and linking and you’ve got a chance!
Our sense of urgency is heightened because we’re inundated with an endless stream of content. We live, part-time, in a highly personalized, always adapting algorithm that feeds us everything we need and pushes us to buy it NOW! HURRY!!!! If you don’t get it right this f*cking second you might die. Or worse… you’ll get it too late and it won’t even be the Right Thing anymore.
Oh, you bought the strawberry jam cozy coquette girly pop aesthetic jacket? Haha. We’re caramel latte teddy bear mob wives now. Idiot.
In my photos from 2016, my friends and I were all wearing iterations of the same thing in every single photo we took together. Army jackets, ankle booties, chokers, criss-cross body suits, ripped skinny jeans, and no one knew how to do their eye liner.
Even the trendiest thing had a longer shelf life. Outfit repeating was normal. I remember saving up to buy a For Love and Lemons two-piece set to wear to Coachella and I wore it to death! Multiple feed posts on multiple occassions! The high I felt from having it in my closet didn’t dissipate. In fact, it’s still in my closet because it meant such a big deal.
I sympathize with the kids (and their parents) who are in middle school and high school now and trying to stay #grateful and #grounded. I can’t imagine navigating that god forsaken hormone filled time of life at the same time as TikTok Shop and Get Ready With Mes.
I wonder what we’ll be doing 10 years from now. Maybe we will just crawl into our phones and live inside the algorithm, tucked in between Japanese 7/11 ramen mukbangs and mermaid ASMR spa treatments. Cozy.
There are a bajillion other reasons why millennials especially are longing for 2016.
Most obviously, it was the last year before and ever since January 20th, 2017 we have unfortunately been living in the after. Toss a global pandemic into the middle of that and boom—2016 feels like a love dream you wish your alarm clock didn’t disrupt. It does fill me with a certain amount of glee that everyone, friends and foes, are collectively yearning for this year. At least we can agree on this one thing… even though maybe it’s not totally registering for everyone, ha.
ANYWAY.
I don’t know why I felt so compelled to talk about this in length. I’m always a bit melancholy and nostalgic over the past, but I think the social media of it all feels important to reflect on. At least for me, someone who has spent her entire career in this industry and has reaped the benefits and suffered the consequences of it at its best and worst.
If the essence of 2016 is what we want to channel in 2026, then:
Screen time needs to be more intentional and less mindless.
Creating needs to outweigh consuming.
We might need to buy chokers?
And we definitely need to be listening to more Flume.
That’s all I’ve got.
Caylee, out. ;)
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy my newsletter, The Dressing Room, and 11 whimsical habits to keep you from spiraling into the darkness
So well said! 100% aligned with these takeaways, including the chokers 🩵
you encapsulated this so perfectly!!! oh, what a time it was from our agency life to FFF. miss those days fr :") and i'll never forget when alfred tea first opened!!