The 2016 Trend: When Nostalgia Becomes a Political Weapon

Recently, the internet has been reminiscing about a simpler time – a time when Snapchat filters and Musical.ly had all the hype, and AI chatbots like ChatGPT were a foreign concept that no one was concerned with in their seemingly blissful existences. Harper's Bazaar described 2016 as ‘the last good year’. From Zara Larsson’s ‘Lush Life’ to skinny jeans and ankle boots, 2016 is being framed as a time of innocence and authenticity, when things weren't so performative.

The ‘2016 trend’ has been circulating on social media for the last couple of months. With over 55 million TikTok videos under the slogan, the question becomes: is this trend pure comforting nostalgia, or is there something more sinister happening here?

Notably, the end of 2016 marked Donald Trump's election into the US office, ushering in a new age in which entertainment and politics became permanently entangled and seemingly inescapable, especially on social media. Once-harmless memes or the occasional unwanted post on users’ feeds now live in the land of doomscrolling, with bad news and culture wars besieging the entire social media landscape.

Nostalgia expert Clay Routledge told NBC News, ‘people tend to become nostalgic when they are anxious about the future and unsure as to what stage in life to take’. Amidst AI threatening millions of jobs, addiction to social media-induced dopamine, a sexual predator as the US president, and ongoing international conflict, people have a right to be worried about the state of the world. Routledge notes that people tend to be ‘especially nostalgic’ for that time in their youth when they felt ‘young and free and energised most’. So it's not surprising that this particular age group – people who would have been teenagers or very young adults in 2016 – are looking to that time for inspiration as they're going through transitions and dealing with anxieties about the present and the future.

Nevertheless, the issue is that we lie. We lie on cameras, on social media, and even to ourselves. When I looked at my own Snapchat dog filter, Adidas Superstar-wearing pictures of 2016, it does seem like a simpler time. Firstly, because I was in fact twelve. Secondly, because I did not record the bad parts.

When I think of 2016, I think of Brexit. I think of my dad sitting me down and apologising that my life would never be the same.

Nostalgia may seem harmless, but there is something concerning about its rhetoric. It is an extremely powerful political tool that has been utilised throughout history. Trump's slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ is nostalgic by definition. Even Reform UK, which by name is meant to be an innovative party, claims to ‘inch by inch reset Britain to its glorious past’ (comment made by Reform member Andrea Jenkyns). By ‘stopping the boats’ and making it extremely difficult for new residents to permanently settle in the UK, they wish to return to a time when there was less immigration, less diversity, and less ethnic cohesion. They want a divided, intolerant society like those we hoped had been left in the twentieth century.

There is worrying research about the romanticisation of past events – especially politically. NYU Professor Bart Bonikowski studied US presidential campaign speeches from 1952 to 2020 and found that nostalgic appeals to an idealised past are frequently employed in radical-right discourse, though they originate in mainstream politics. This romanticisation is problematic, given that it keeps people fixated on a time when they perceived themselves as happier: when life seemed easier, and when the world felt lighter. By constantly looking backwards rather than forwards, we risk becoming paralysed in our ability to envision and create meaningful change – a dangerous

tendency when our capacity to imagine and shape the future matters most.

This forward-thinking vision is particularly pivotal now, as young people face unprecedented challenges that demand innovative solutions rather than the retreat into a fabricated golden age. We are at a generational crossroads where political instability, economic precarity, and rapid technological change require us to reimagine systems that no longer serve us. Yet society seems to have lost its ability to imagine alternatives. In times of such bleakness, envisioning a better future can seem impossible. What good prospects are there? Getting indebted for life studying for a job that is soon to be taken over by AI? Making brainrot on TikTok, even though it is unethical and soulless? Or perhaps working extremely hard following your passion, only to realise that it is impossible to get on the property ladder while also affording food?

Things are hard. However, they are not going to get easier in an endless cycle of nostalgia and reminiscence. Citing Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Canto V: ‘There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time when miserable’. It is natural to romanticise and long for past times that appear ‘simpler’, but moving forward with creativity and hope is the only way forward.

Words by Lily Rodney, she/her