Opinion On the Internet, people are missing 2016. But who fixed this cut-off for nostalgia?
When a trend goes viral now, it's nearly impossible to tell: Is this organic? Did the algorithm push it? Did we choose this, or did it choose us?
So why does 2016 feel like simpler times, when it was as politically tumultuous as 2026? The answer may lie in what changed about social media that very year. It’s a paradox worth examining. Imagine if the algorithm were a person, or well, a bunch of people, sitting in a backroom sifting through online content to curate your “For You” feed. They’d know you the best. One of them would chuckle at a particularly “dank” meme, maybe an inside joke that only you two share, before projecting it onto your screen. Except, it isn’t a person, but a machine that has learned to identify the content you engage with, like, share, and react to.
So, who decided it was time to repost memories from 2016, the algorithm or us? Scroll through any social media platform, and you’d surely see snapshots from a decade ago. It was the era before we had “looksmaxxed”, “aura-farmed”, or “ate”, as the internet would call it. 2016, now wearing Retrica’s yellow-tint, appears like a simpler time. Chokers and ripped jeans were in. Listening to The Chainsmokers meant you were “cool”. And Bollywood was belting out some of its biggest hits, from Dangal to the M S Dhoni biopic. ‘Channa Mereya’ was an entire generation’s breakup song, and ‘Kala Chashma’ ended up with a permanent spot on party playlists.
The trend itself isn’t new. Humans have always loved to reminisce, and platforms have learned to package nostalgia into hashtags. The algorithm has figured out that looking back keeps us scrolling. In 2019, we posted photos from 2009 (#2009vs2019). In the early 2010s, #throwbackthursday became a weekly ritual, and as of January 2026, there are 55.9 million posts with that hashtag on Instagram alone. Every day, Instagram digs into your story archives to resurface photos from “one year ago”. Google Photos sends notifications when it compiles heartwarming videos from your photos from five years ago. The 2016 trend is simply the latest iteration.
And as we generously romanticise the past, many assert that 2016 was the last “best year” — a claim contested by the politics of that year. Donald Trump came to power in the United States. The UK left the European Union. And the Indian government decided to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes.
So why does 2016 feel like simpler times, when it was as politically tumultuous as 2026? The answer may lie in what changed about social media that very year. It’s a paradox worth examining. The very algorithms that now feed us this nostalgia are the same ones that fundamentally changed the internet in 2016, transforming it into the hyper-optimised, engagement-baiting ecosystem we are trying to escape.
Facebook had changed its News Feed in 2009 to prioritise “relevance” over chronological order, and seven years in, the model had matured, and other platforms were following suit. In 2016, Instagram, by then owned by Facebook, announced it would abandon chronological feeds in favour of algorithmic curation, promising content “ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.” Twitter, now X, introduced a similar feature to show “best tweets first”.
At the time, these announcements sparked user backlash. People worried about losing access to real-time information and missing posts from friends and their favourite creators. The fact that there was, and remains, a shroud of secrecy around how these algorithms actually function only made things worse.
The effects of this shift have been measurable and profound. Research shows algorithmic curation can funnel users into echo chambers, feeding them more of what they already like and believe. Ragebait, moral panics, and hot takes — content designed for engagement — elicit strong reactions that spill into real life. And the prioritisation of short-form video content has demonstrably impacted attention spans.
In the years since, the algorithm has received countless makeovers and AI-powered upgrades. Social media transformed from the town’s message board to a parallel virtual space, and now, as bots and AI slop proliferate, it increasingly looks less human. When a trend goes viral now, it’s nearly impossible to tell: Is this organic? Did the algorithm push it? Did we choose this, or did it choose us?
The nostalgia for 2016 seems to be driven by both. There’s no denying that when you post your 2016 photo, it feels human and an act of shared cultural experience. We choose to participate. We choose to find connections on platforms designed to be isolating. And the algorithm? It may not have created the longing for 2016, but it recognised, packaged it, and sold it back to us as a trend. Perhaps in 2036, we will look back at 2026 as the best year.
sonal.gupta@indianexpress.com
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