Understanding 2016 Aesthetics
2016 is one of those pillar years that lay the foundation for what historians will think of when they look back on the 2010s decade with a microscope. Before this most recent uptick in 2016 truthers, there had been talk online for years that 2016 was the best time in many social media users’ lives.
memezar on Instagram, @Alexander_Ryan3 on X, via Miniscule-fish on Reddit
What are 2016’s aesthetic components that make the year so attractive to present-day social media users? It’s probably the carefree, cringe-embracing, Vaudeville vibe of it all. When I think about 2016, I ruminate through the lens of a 15-year-old girl who was chronically online (because I was).
2016 was the year of casually posting heavily filtered selfies on Instagram, lugging around boxy Fujifilm cameras, indulging in calorie-heavy Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccinos, and not caring so much about, you know, emoting in public.
These components nearly completely oppose the aesthetics the internet has chosen to uplift and embody in the last few years.
Other components of the 2016 renaissance include the “King Kylie” era, when Kylie Jenner was crowned the Instagram baddie of the year and basically raised an entire generation of teens with her Kylie Jenner lip kits. Aside from the infamous Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge that had occurred a year prior, Jenner embodied the carefree, cool girl aesthetic on Instagram for all users to see and subsequently mimic.
Think: L.A. palm trees, backwards snapbacks, makeup on fleek, and the like. Overall, pop and celebrity culture felt more genuine in 2016. Instead of management-run X (formerly Twitter) accounts, celebrities were giving their loyal followers daily updates on their lives, what they ate for breakfast, and more infamously, dished out their celebrity drama for the entire world to see.
This authenticity cleared the smokescreen between “normies” and celebrities, and in doing so, made the difference between the two parties feel less stark. Nothing makes you feel as good about yourself as feeling similar to your favorite pop culture kings and queens.
The 2016 music landscape welcomed EDM-pop bops that were reserved strictly for Z-100, back when people still listened to the radio. These tunes felt innately hopeful in a historically turbulent time, displaying positive feelings when we could’ve easily chosen the route of apathy, and rejected cynical outlooks (not only lyrically, but melodically, too). In all, 2016 feels like the dream we were all forced to wake up from.
You Don’t Know What You Got ‘Til It’s Gone
We all have to awake from the elusive, just-out-of-reach daydream of teenhood and early adulthood at some point. Back then, many of us had just enough freedom to do whatever we wanted, but were still able to make all the necessary mistakes one makes in their youth without great repercussions.
2016 was a test run, 2026 is “real-life.” Nostalgia will always exist because, as humans, we will always yearn for the joyous times we’ve had, especially when our current circumstances pale in comparison.
The bottom line: Growing up is hard, especially when the overall vibe of adulthood you had envisioned for yourself years ago does not meet your hopeful, bright-eyed expectations. Combine that generational letdown with the fact that the world is evidently falling apart in many ways, and you have the perfect recipe for regression.
Now, 25-year-olds are ditching the iced Americanos and heading straight for the caramel frappuccinos with extra, extra caramel and a generous glob of whipped cream. Instead of reaching for the repetitive neutrals in their closets and in their Instagram filter choices, they’re prioritizing the youthful pastel hues our forefathers championed in 2016.
We all like to replicate a good time, but you can never get exactly what you were looking for. Often, you might end up with something completely, but positively, different. That “same but different” feeling is akin to reliving your “glory days.” For example, the feeling when you visit your hometown bar to meet up with your high school friends for the holidays, and it’s actually fun. Those yearning for 2016 are longing for that feeling, just with a bit more permanence.
How do you hardwire whimsy into your psyche when all the internet has told you to do for the last few years is become more apathetic and cynical?
Historical Parallels and Outliers Tell the Whole Story
Specific historical moments have definitely exacerbated this multi-generational apathy and indifference, especially in Gen Zers. It doesn’t take a decadeologist to see the glaring parallels between the state of American politics in 2016 and 2026. The likeness between both years’ fashion cycles, and even the shared similarities between each year’s food trends.
2016 pop culture relied on hopeless consumers to indulge in their hearts’ desires because everything outside of the pop culture sphere felt so bad. 2016’s whimsy is a direct result of a string of years that began with the Afghanistan war and ended with a presidential win that put most of us on a bleak trajectory moving forward. We all needed a pick-me-up, something to help keep our feet moving to the beat of life when all we wanted to do was hide in a corner and sulk. That sense of whimsy, though it originated from a desolate place, lit up a fire under us and kept us going.
Like in the mid-2000s and the Roaring Twenties, hope was absent in most areas of everybody’s lives. So, to make up for lives void of any positivity, in came mass media entertainment to soften the blow of wartime, undesirable presidencies, and recessions. They didn’t really fix anything, but they sure made things feel a lot less serious. Instead of the apathetic route that many Gen Zers are taking today, consumers in 1929, 2006, and 2016 chose to be blind hopefuls instead. I’m thinking they had it right.
That time in 2O2O (we all know what I’m talking about…) definitely didn’t help the sweeping wave of multi-generational apathy we’re seeing in this decade, which mainly affected millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. Gen X and the baby boomers had already witnessed their fair share of political turbulence and overall low generational morale, but millennials and Gen Zers alike were in the thick of their first humbling experience as a sentient group of people.
Older generations told younger generations that their adult lives would look a certain way, but in actuality, their adult lives took a more awful turn instead. Millennials were convinced that they’d be homeowners by 35, Gen Zers thought they’d get a prom and graduation… and that getting a bachelor’s degree would help them get a job…
2016 takes us back to a time when everything wasn’t taken for granted, nor so seriously. If the state of the world is in shambles, can’t we post our impromptu Instagram selfies without fear of judgment from “cool girls” in our comments section?
Gen Z is tired of being the ironic cynics they’ve become as a result of their environment and the culture they’ve perpetuated for far too long. 2016 is their ticket back to the Holy Land, and you all better jump on your penny boards quickly before we get into the time machine. Unicorn Frappuccino, here I come.
