Is 2016 Swag Back?
As the New Year rang in, the trends began to emerge. The most prominent trend was “2026 is the new 2016.” The yearning and nostalgia for simpler times came in strong. As celebrities began to post their 2016 photo dumps on Instagram, Hollister started to re-release micro mini shorts with the lowest waist imaginable, and the dog filter began being used again.
If you don’t remember the trends that took over a decade ago, let me remind you: Playing Pokémon Go in a checkered slip on Vans, a bomber jacket with a black plastic choker necklace, a bun on the very top of your head, huge sunglasses, and skinny jeans, of course with a Starbucks in hand. Friendships were offline, feeds were pre-algorithmic, and you weren’t watched by the internet. There was freedom.
2016 was a year of great importance for many. Beyoncé released her iconic album Lemonade — post the Jay-Z cheating scandal — leaving the entire world shocked and forever changed. Fashion was booming with Hedi Slimane and Phoebe Philo. Many of the trends never left, or left and catapulted back abruptly, such as ballet flats and loafers.
2026 feels suspiciously like 2016 again. Indie sleaze is back, people are going out more in all-black t-shirts with silhouettes, digital burnout is real, and everyone wants to feel young and chaotic, it seems. It seems there is a cultural cycle that resets every 10 years, a feeling that history is looping back to itself. People want to experience life pre-pandemic, pre-burnout era. However, this time within a slightly more mature and self-aware generation.
The pandemic took many experiences away from Gen Z, like Proms, graduation ceremonies, and even simple drives blasting music with friends, all of which Millennials got to experience properly. As we get further away from the pandemic and life has only gotten more serious, Gen Z and Millennials have both come to an understanding that they were taking life a little too seriously. So, it's not just a cycle; it's grief for lost time. It's Gen Z trying to reclaim a youth that was interrupted by COVID.
What is truly missed about 2016 is not the chokers or the Vans — it's how unselfconscious everything and everyone felt. People were not curating themselves online yet; they were posting freely on Instagram with the rainbow filter over it, showing the personality of Vine carelessly. People were truly being themselves, not trying to copy what was deemed cool. Millennials were just bored teenagers wandering around outside, sharing Starbucks drinks, posting blurry photos without overthinking how they looked. Fun happened naturally. Now, in 2026, everyone is trying to recreate that same chaos, but it may be too planned, too scheduled, too strategic. Everyone seems to be chasing a feeling no one realized was rare at the time.
