2016 was a year of rainbow “unicorn” frappuccinos, King Kylie, rose gold iPhone 7s, and Rio De Janeiro colored lens over everything. The year has become trending again and earned the reminiscent title of “the best summer in the 2010’s”. As the year has become memorialized in Gen Z history, despite the generation being between the ages of 4 and 12 at the time, there has been an urge to make 2026 the “new 2016.” When life was freer and memories were full of times blasting the Chainsmokers with the windows down. But how perfect was 2016 really, and how much is just nostalgia?
2016 was also the year that Donald Trump was elected for the first time. The start of a polarizing political divide in the U.S. that only has increased a decade later. While it can be fun to reminisce in the past, it is important to also remember why we need to evolve from it.
Feelings of nostalgia are often heightened during periods of uncertainty, when popular culture is artificial and overwhelming. With the state of the world going into 2026 it makes sense that we are triggered into yearning for a more familiar past. This phenomenon was very obvious in 2020 when people craved their pre-pandemic lifestyles. But when we look at the years 2016 and 2026 on paper, it seems like we are forgetting crucial parts of 2016 in our wistful haze.
So, why do we always remember the past as better than the present? We can blame the distortion of our memories on rosy retrospective, a cognitive bias where people recall the past more positively than it actually happened, because negative memories often fade faster than positive ones. This makes it easy to feel nostalgic about our past when we literally forget about all the stress and negative feelings from the time.
It’s arguable that the reason we miss 2016 so strongly is the romanticization on the internet. Many prominent figures on the internet were young teenagers or children in 2016, a simpler time with less responsibilities when you are young. But are we giving too much glory to the past while not being appreciative of the present? How much can we really change if we stay stuck reliving the past?
