2026 is the new 2016 trend on YouTube and TikTok. Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with ten years ago? - share your experience

[CarlosBuddle]

There is a social media trend running across YouTube and TikTok right now where people are sharing content from 2016 and reflecting on where they were ten years ago. Pokémon Go launches. The Mannequin Challenge. Drake and Rihanna. The Chainsmokers everywhere. Vine dying. It feels like the last moment before several things changed at once.

Wikipedia has an actual article about the trend now. The nostalgic framing is partly about the pre-AI, pre-pandemic internet and partly just the ordinary mechanics of a decade anniversary. But the videos performing best are the genuinely personal ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[VoidSentinel]

2016 was the last year I remember not feeling like the internet was actively trying to make me anxious. That might be what this is really about

[Ronan_34]

The Chainsmokers being the sonic marker for that year is historically accurate and slightly painful

[Protocol]

Pokémon Go turning up in the Wikipedia article about this trend is correct. That summer felt genuinely joyful in a specific way that has not been replicated

[Daresh84]

Vine dying in 2017 is the cultural event that the 2026 is the new 2016 nostalgia is really mourning. Short form comedy without the algorithmic pressure

[Amber99]

The pre-AI framing is interesting. People are nostalgic for content that they knew was made by humans because there was no alternative

[Aaron]

Ten year anniversaries always produce this. 2016 is a particularly loaded year to be nostalgic about given everything that happened politically and culturally

[CarlosBuddle]

The genuinely personal videos where people talk about where they were in 2016 are outperforming the meme format ones significantly

[RayOfLight99]

The Mannequin Challenge is genuinely one of the most benign viral moments in internet history and that feels significant looking back

[Wizard]

The nostalgia cycle has accelerated. We used to wait twenty years to romanticise an era. Now it is ten. Next year it will be five

[Kev5]

Ah 2016 my favourite vintage