Why nostalgia for 2016 is taking over social media in 2026

Wake up, it’s 2016.

The Chainsmokers are playing wall to wall, you’ve perfected your Snapchat dog filter pose, and Leicester City just won the Premier League.

Justin Bieber and Drake are dominating playlists and everyone is chasing Pikachu on Pokémon Go – if they’re not filming their Mannequin Challenge attempt on their phone.

It seems like it happened yesterday. But perhaps it’s thanks to social media, which welcomed 2026 by looking back 10 years.

According to TikTok, searches for “2016” jumped 452% last week and more than 55 million videos were created using the app’s filter named after the year.

The nostalgia wave makes us remember our favorite trends, pieces and looks. But why now? And is there anything special about 2016 in particular?

Music was a key driver of the 2016 revival, and some of the year’s most popular tracks made a comeback online.

Radio 1 Anthems presenter Lauren Redfern told BBC Newsbeat it wasn’t hard to see why.

“It’s so great, this music from that era, and so nostalgic for a lot of us,” she says.

“We had Zayn’s first solo single, Pillow Talk, the Chainsmokers were really hot at that time.

“Twenty One Pilots, The 1975 – it was all happening.”

Spotify stats show a 71% increase in “2016” playlists last year compared to 2024, and hit artists have also made a comeback.

Zara Larsson’s hit Lush Life, which first entered the charts 10 years ago, re-entered the UK top 40 last month and has since risen to number eight.

The Swedish pop sensation also started a makeup trend focused on maximally glamorous “Y2K” looks, and it’s something Lauren remembers fondly from 2016.

“They were all crazy colors,” she says. “The eyeshadow was bright pink. I also loved a big, thick, winged eyeliner.

“I still like to bring this out every once in a while.”

Joel Marlinarson, from London, is a TikTok creator and brand strategist whose video explaining why Gen Z is so obsessed with 2016 has been viewed over a million times.

The 22-year-old tells Newsbeat that the year became its own aesthetic on TikTok, largely thanks to the dedicated filter, which he says helped accelerate the trend.

It gives videos a vintage, pink-hued look that’s reminiscent of the classic Instagram photo effects “everyone was using” in 2016, says Joel.

“So without using words, whether it’s someone in France, whether it’s someone in Germany, seeing that filter, you’re instantly taken back to a time when we were having so much fun and were a lot younger,” he says.

Joel says the pink hues also evoke a simpler time on social media, which played a big role in young people’s lives but was much less complex.

“Looking at Instagram, around 2016, there were no carousel posts,” says Joel. “People were posting a picture of their lawyer, and it wasn’t that performative.

“There were no short reels, so there wasn’t that kind of algorithmic fatigue that people feel today.”

It’s something Lauren, 26, says she can relate to.

“To be honest, 2016 was the year of Snapchat stories,” she says. “If I look back on my Snapchat memories, almost all of them are from 2016.

“Instagram was all about photos, we didn’t have to worry about Reels, we didn’t have to worry about updating our stories all the time. It was just a simple, relaxed life.”

Looking at 2016 through a – literal – rose-tinted filter is a source of comfort for many of us, but does it distort our memory?

It was a particularly dark year for celebrity deaths, with legends including David Bowie, Prince, George Michael and Alan Rickman passing away.

And 2016 also saw some major global events – such as the UK’s Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s first US election victory – that continue to divide people, whether they rejoice or despair at the outcome.

Psychologist Clay Routledge has specialized in the study of nostalgia since 2001 and says he’s “hesitant to do too much in any given year.”

The political events of 2016 may have deepened existing divisions, Clay says, but these important moments and events hold nostalgic power because they act as “markers.”

“You can always find these moments in time that people anchor to for some sort of orientation,” he says.

Clay suggests two factors that could be driving the obsession with 2016: the start of a new year and many young people feeling uncertain about the future.

“We tend to be especially nostalgic when the world feels like it’s going through major changes,” Clay says.

It highlights the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and people’s concerns about its impact on jobs.

“When generations go through this kind of upheaval or this kind of challenge, they tend to look to their youth for comfort, for inspiration, for guidance,” he says.

And 10 years ago, that makes sense to a lot of us, he says.

“The younger millennials would be in their early 30s, and the older Gen Zs would be in their late 20s, and 10 years ago that would be that kind of youthful period,” he says. “People look back a decade and say, ‘Okay, what was going on then?’

Lauren, who was a teenager at the time, says 2016 was “a pivotal time for a lot of us” and a time of firsts, of discovering the world – and ourselves – as we go.

Many people are taking advantage of this trend to remember and reflect on how their lives have changed, and Joel thinks it reminds many of how carefree things were 10 years ago.

“You posted something, you didn’t think about the number of likes,” he recalls. “Maybe it’s to do with the universal experience of aging, but it feels like things are so conflicted now that we can all relate to the feeling that the world was a little lighter back then.”

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