Instagram users are romanticizing 2016

A wave of digital nostalgia is sweeping across social media platforms as users look back to the year 2016. On Instagram, users have posted more than 5.2 million responses to a 2016-themed “add yours” sticker—an Instagram sticker feature for user-generated content chains. This viral trend has expanded to other platforms as well. On the music streaming service Spotify, the number of 2016-themed playlists has increased 790% since the new year.

This sudden interest in 2016 highlights a growing contrast between the current digital landscape and the internet of a decade ago. Today’s online experience is increasingly defined by artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and what critics call “enshittification”—the degradation of online platforms. In 2016, the internet represented a moment before algorithmic feeds fully took over. While platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Apple’s Photos app now constantly prompt users with historical memories, the current nostalgia reflects a deeper desire to return to a pre-algorithm era.

To understand this shift, meme librarian Amanda Brennan suggests looking back to 2006, the year the social internet cemented itself when Twitter launched, Google acquired YouTube, and Facebook opened registration to anyone above 13. Brennan notes that by 2016, a decade of development had changed how people interacted online. “By 2016, you will see that ten years of time has let people evolve, and people who necessarily were not internet nerds to begin with maybe ended up on 4chan, and all of these smaller little places where previously, they had been made of internet people, versus people who are not as online,” Brennan said. She also noted that because of mobile phones, everyone has essentially become an internet person.

However, the romanticized view of 2016 often overlooks the period’s actual anxieties and darker events. Historically, the year was marked by the culmination of the Syrian civil war, the Pulse nightclub shooting, and debates comparing the era’s dread to 1348, when the Black Death took hold, or 1943, during the height of the Holocaust. Online, Brennan notes it makes sense that 2016 was also the year Pepe the Frog was corrupted into a hate symbol and the misogyny that fueled Gamergate entered national politics. Despite these realities, the pre-algorithmic internet continues to attract users tired of modern digital friction.

Why it matters

The trend highlights a growing user fatigue with modern algorithmic feeds and AI-generated content, signaling a desire for a more human-centric, pre-enshittification digital experience.