However, there is a strong argument to be made that this is an image rehabilitation project for a period that, by its end, was being dubbed the “worst year ever” thanks to the relentless pace with which it churned out negative and controversial headlines. Perhaps it is not the year in totality that the memes are yearning for, but rather what they perceive as a preferable time to be online.
It has previously been proposed that the time it takes for people to fondly remember a certain era and for that to be expressed in popular culture—i.e., the nostalgia cycle—has been shortened by the internet. It was once perceived to be roughly 20 years, as with some 90s fashion trends being inspired by the 70s, for example. Now, with the overwhelming amount of content at everybody’s fingertips, it encourages more niche trends and a faster recycling of the past, such as with younger Gen Z individuals appreciating the style of early 2010s Tumblr.
The 2016 fad is more ephemeral than this, focused more strongly on recapturing an emotion than an aesthetic. The punchline to any 2016-focused meme is always a feeling of light-heartedness and happiness. It isn’t pointing to any specific event or memory but establishing a kind of retrospective utopia—a world that was on vacation every single day, trying to expand their Pokémon collection on Pokémon Go.
This case of rose-tinted glasses is not simply coincidental, but aligned with how internet culture operated during this period. While this time may have provided the world with a nonstop reel of bad, contentious, and ‘fake’ news, it was, in many ways, a comparatively great era to be chronically online.
Social media still had issues, but at the same time, it was more impactful than ever before. It was the creative heyday of Twitter and Tumblr sh*tposters, and viral celebrities and budding influencers enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame were still a novelty as opposed to an industry. The star of the “D**n Daniel” Twitter videos that celebrated his personal style was interviewed on Ellen, gifted with a lifetime supply of Vans.
The year of 2016 was, further, the final year of the ultra-short-form video platform Vine, and when Snapchat was at the peak of its popularity. They were both places that promoted a zany, effortless, personable kind of humor that felt a lot less rehearsed than the more “professional” or automated offerings of today, which are so frequently dismissed as “slop”.
Adding to this was the fact that memes were enjoying a level of mainstream currency they had never had before, with a host of classics that have a defined place in the meme hall of fame, either first appearing this year or reaching new levels of recognition.
A Know Your Meme roundup of the year’s most popular memes announced it was a “golden age of the meme culture”, as it enjoyed heightened societal impact. It cited the fact that memes had begun to infiltrate the political sphere, such as Barack Obama performing a “mic drop” during a speech, and that 2016 had been the first time that “memes” were more frequently searched on Google than “Jesus” or “God”. The article contained entries such as Harambe, the gorilla who faced an untimely end at the Cincinnati Zoo, the catchphrase “Don’t Talk To Me Or My Son Ever Again”, and Pepe the Frog.
Despite the strengths perceived in hindsight, thanks to the perspective of the current internet landscape, the 2016 internet was not free from critique. In a retrospective of online activity during this period, writer Leigh Alexander condemned the internet as “a place for your buttoned-up self, with the untidy entrails of your real life shoved under the bed”, due to increased levels of targeted harassment using an individual’s digital footprint. Also condemning the rise of extremism on social media and the excessive consumption of online media in what would later come to be known as “doomscrolling”. She lamented of our internet usage that “we want it to stop, because we can’t seem to stop it ourselves.”
Alexander’s assessment suggests that although various cultural and technological advancements and regressions have happened in the years since, in some ways, the negative aspects of the internet haven’t changed very much at all. That said, she claims that “We still say ‘IRL’ to distinguish between talking digitally and talking in person, but the fact is that the internet became the primary site of real life.” In 2025, we have reached a point where this distinction is rarely made, and as a result, this time, where there was at least a facsimile of separation between the two is given added clout.
Perhaps the appeal of the 2016 internet lies in its finality, acting as the official representative of an era long gone yet still in living memory. It has been argued by historians such as Brad DeLong that 2016 marked the end of the “long 20th century” in the USA, which began in the 1870s with the emergence of globalization and corporations, and was concluded by the election of Donald Trump on an isolationist platform.
The idea of 2016 as a final chapter can be translated into the memetic nostalgia of recent years. It was a sweet spot pre-generative AI, every other platform was a shopping channel, and every creative enterprise was “content”, while also being post-breakthrough of online culture into the mainstream.
Nostalgia has existed throughout nearly every time in history, but in this moment, internet culture has decided to pine for this particular year. 2016 offers meme creators a touchpoint that can appeal to multiple generations of digital natives.
This ranges from those who are reminded of their childhood to the older screen addicts who miss a time when, irrespective of the reality, it felt a little more like their social media usage served to entertain them and not the narrow interests of a small and unpleasant sliver of society. With almost a decade between now and then, it’s enjoyable to reminisce about how good we (kind of) had it, and create potential engagement bait in the process.
