Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Why Everyone Is Suddenly Obsessed With 2016

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

Matt Bernstein, Kat Tenbarge and I dig into what the 2016 nostalgia is really about. Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with 2016? Hyper-saturated Instagram photos are back. The Snapchat puppy filter is everywhere again. Nostalgic edits are flooding TikTok. From the "King Kylie" era to Harambe, it feels like we’re collectively regressing.Support my independent journalism:🙏 Patreon:⁠⁠ https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz⁠⁠🗞️ Substack:⁠⁠ https://www.usermag.co⁠⁠But was 2016 really “the last good year”? I wanted to understand why this particular moment looms so large in our cultural memory, so I called up my friends Matt Bernstein and Kat Tenbarge to discuss.Kat is an incredible journalist and the author of Spitfire News, and Matt is an iconic podcast host and content creator. We re-examined the defining moments of 2016, talk about the old days of YouTube, why boomers don't get the nostalgia, and why 2016 has become such a powerful focal point. We unpack what this fixation on 2016 reveals about today's internet, culture, and politics nearly a decade later.Follow me:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenzInstagram (alt): https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenzX: https://x.com/taylorlorenzBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.socialIn this video, we cover:The revival of 2016 aesthetics on TikTok.Why people romanticize the pre-Trump/early-Trump era.The impact of 2016 internet humor on today's culture.The rise of the content creator industry. Why it's all Gen Z and Millennials who are getting nostalgic while older generations don't seem to care. 

And after they called it for Trump, I just remember sobbing hysterically with my roommates. And that was like such a low, terrible moment. It just felt like being like a living nightmare. Lately, it seems like the entire internet is in a state of regression. People are posting old, hyper-saturated Instagram photos, bringing back the Snapchat puppy filter,

and hyper-romanticizing 2016. From the memes declaring it the last good year to the revival of 2016, music and internet, humor all over TikTok, I think it's worth digging into why we have this cultural obsession with the year 2016. So to reexamine 2016 culture and major moments, I had to call up my friends Kat Tenbarge and Matt Bernstein. Kat is an incredible freelance journalist and the author of Spitfire News newsletter. Matt is an iconic podcaster and content creator. And together, we're going to reexamine the pivotal events of 2016 and talk about why this year specifically has become such a focal point for nostalgia.

We're also going to examine what the rise in 2016 nostalgia says about the state of the internet, culture, and politics a decade later. So thank you guys so much for joining me today to discuss one of the most important topics in news today, 2016 nostalgia. I'm so excited. I'm here. I'm dressed like shit and I'm ready to talk. Well, like I was telling you guys before we started recording, I thought of doing an entire 2016 get up and like, doing my makeup and then surprising you and coming on stream. And I didn't feel like doing that ultimately. But I did take a look back through some really bad fashion, which was happening back in 2016. Unlike you, Matt, you look amazing. But to start off, I want to kind of like level

set and tell everyone kind of where we all were in 2016. I'll tell you, I'll start with me. I was covering the election. I mean, I was a political reporter covering the 2016 election for the Hill. I had my own Snapchat show, which is such a sign of the Times. That's awesome. Yeah, I got credentialed with the DNC that year as a Snapchatter. But I was like a young political reporter covering my first political campaign. And it was like so exciting. I remember I worked at the Hill, but I was like, if I could just get a job at BuzzFeed, that would be the dream.

Tell me where you guys were. So 2016 was the second semester of my freshman year of college. and then the first semester of my sophomore year. So I was like a very young college student. I was also, I was covering politics for like my campus, like student news outlet in Ohio. And I really wanted a BuzzFeed internship so badly. This was the era where to apply for a BuzzFeed internship.

You had to make BuzzFeed quizzes. So I would sit in my like dorm and I would make actually viral BuzzFeed quizzes that I was not compensated for in any way. I did not get the internship. I didn't even get an interview. And you know what? Getting older, that is kind of still how these companies were. Exactly.

Matt, what were you up to in 2016? 2016, I was straddling my junior and senior year of high school. I was actually out as gay at the time in my like relatively conservative town in New Jersey. I came out pretty early at 15. And so sort of I spent high school just like yearning to get out of my New Jersey suburb so I could like be with other gay people. Like that's what I wanted from like a very young age. And then I also was like a very vocal Hillary supporter, which now I know it comes off like it's not the same as being a very vocal Hillary supporter in 2026 shortly. But in my high school at the time, that was like made me like pretty out there.

Like I remember when Trump won in November and there were like all the football kids were running down the hallways being like, Trump, baby, we're gonna make America great again. And they were like 17 and like didn't know what they were talking about. But I had like my Hillary phone case and my Hillary button and I was like. The Hillary phone case. Oh, baby. I had the age with the arrow. I was with her. It was actually the first time I voted. I turned 18, 10-ish days before the 2016 election. So that's where I was. I was with her. That's so funny. Because on. on my Snapchat show, which was, I think, watched primarily by children who couldn't even vote. Why were they paying me to make a political show on Snapchat? I don't know. That was like the era when these media companies all were like doing partnerships with Snapchat. I interviewed a lot of people like that, like kids that were in high school that were voting for the first time. And yeah, there was so much excitement around Hillary because we were still in like Obama liberalism.

Which she embodied really well. Like she would have carried the mantle on that for better and for worse. Taylor, I probably watched your Snapchat show because I was really into Snapchat at this time. And they also did daily astrology. And I would get on Snapchat every single morning. I would watch all the little news things. And then I would send everyone there horoscope. It was so crazy.

I mean, we'll get into kind of like the tech landscape of this era. I think of Snapchat so much as like the 2016 app. Like we had the dog filter, the like dancing hot dog. It's when millennials still use Snapchat. I mean, Snapchat, let's not forget, it's a millennial product. I think a lot of people got on it in the first half of the 2010s, even when they were still in college and stuff. And Picaboo is a thing, which was what Snapchat was before Snapchat.

And then, yeah, like these media companies started to pour money into it because it seemed like for a minute that it was really going to compete with Instagram. In part because Instagram launched stories in 2016. That's the first year that there was content outside the main feed as well. I also remember that particular era of people being very parisocial about the platforms themselves. And like, I specifically remember when Instagram introduced stories. People were like, Instagram is jacking Snapchat swag. And like, it was true.

But it was also like, these are all bad corporations, you know. It's like, I don't we, I don't think we need to depend. But you love corporations in 2016. You know, we as in like the public. This was also like the peak of the app economy. Like Tinder had gone viral. viral in the years prior. Everyone had apps. Like you said, there was this like parisocial excitement. That was like when your friend would tell you about a new app and you would be like, wow, sounds so

cool. Like, I've got to download that one. It was before people really understood the concept of like data privacy or like predatory advertising. Mostly because these apps were still being subsidized by the tech companies. So everything seemed great. Like Uber was really cheap. Netflix was also just ascendant. Like Netflix was not by any means like even competing with like, mainstream entertainment. Ellen was still on television back then. I remember having like an app routine where like literally I would wake up in the morning and be like, time to go through all my apps. And it felt like reading the news.

Like it felt like there was a like a beginning and an end to like going through my apps. Whereas now there's no end. There's no end. There's always on and there's only like three apps. I remember yikyak too. People would use that like in school like during class and stuff and people were so mean. People were so. I mean that was just a bullying app basically.

And like type form or like there was a lot of like anonymous kind of feedback platforms that people got into. You also had a lot of like Facebook stuff. Like Facebook was still popular at this time. People were still using Facebook. Facebook groups were popular. Facebook events were a thing. And you had people sharing like Harambe, you know, content or doing the mannequin challenge and sharing their videos on Facebook. Harampe always felt like a spiritually heterosexual meme.

Like I never really got into that. I mean, I'm from Cincinnati, so that's like where Cincinnati Zoo is where Harambe it all went down. So it also was like a very weird like Ohio is the center of the universe kind of year because there was Harambe, there was like so much like election and political news related to Ohio. Jake and Logan Paul. Jake and Logan Paul. My dorm room that I was living in at this time at Ohio University, that was Logan Paul's

freshman year dorm room. We lived in the same room because I could go back on Vine. I could see the videos that he would film in our shared dorm room and be like, there's the dumpster. Like that's it. Wow. In this world, you either become Logan Paul or Kat Ten Bart. The two genders.

It's so crazy. I mean, Vine humor was like so ascendant. And I kind of want to distinguish between like the first half of 2016. Like I want to talk about 2016 pre fall, like end of winter, spring, summer 2016 is what I think a lot of this nostalgia is centered on. And like, I don't know, I think so much of like the tech and internet and like visual identity from that era, like the Instagram filters, the Snapchat, the peak millennial aesthetic was driven by early influencer culture.

Like you mentioned, the Logan Paul, the Jake Paul Vine. This is the peak of 1600 vine. You know, it's interesting to see a lot of these like nostalgia reels as well. So many of them just focus on like LA imagery and like LA captured specifically through like the vloggers of that time. The beginning of James Charles, cover girl. Tanamojo was ascendant this year. And I feel like with a lot of these young influencers

who were like carrying the torch into a new generation, moving to L.A. was the sign that you had made it. So for everyone watching them, like L.A. became very idealized as like, it was the center of just like internet culture. It's so funny. I mean, just like the palm trees and the like the, like the, the houses. I mean, I think of like, this is a little earlier, I would say more 2014 of like 02L, but it was that era of YouTube still, like the Joey Grecefa, the Connor Franta.

Like those were like the big stars of the day. So I actually went to school, like university. I went to art school and I studied photography. And during high school, I just became transfixed with the art of photography. And I used Instagram before I was kind of doing anything that I now, I was just using it as a photography portfolio. If you, the listener, are curious, you can scroll on, scroll and scroll some of it is still there. But by using Instagram as a portfolio, I ended up making some connections from people who wanted to have their pictures taken, you know? And one of the people that I connected with as a junior in high school was Connor Franta. And when he was visiting New York, because this was like really like, like you said, like these people, Connor Franta, Troy Sivan, before he became.

famous in a different way. J.C. Kalin, all of these people were so huge and they appealed, I think, especially also to a lot of like closeted gay kids, even before some of them came out. But Conor Franta was just like such an A-Lister and I took the train, the New Jersey Transit, into this city and I met Conor Franta and we did this like four times and it was like we would walk down the street and I would take pictures of him and he was getting recognized left and right and left and right. And I took pictures of him with his family. Like, it was the first exposure I ever had to celebrity, and it was wild. And he's such a nice guy.

And shout out Connor Franta. Connor deserves, I mean, he deserves so much recognition. And he's so from that era too, like, his whole aesthetic was very, like, 2016. You know, it's so funny because, like, years later, of course, Emma Chamberlain launched her, you know, coffee company and everything. And people are like, oh, you know, influencers are finally getting their own brands. This is Connor Franta erasure, because let's not forget, what is it? Common culture. Common culture, baby.

It was like coffee and music. It was a lifestyle brand. As a kid during those years, you're so right. Like, I mean, I still think it's true that a lot of young people actually more than ever want to be influencers, but there was the specific look to the influencers of that era and like they would all move into these like modern boxy apartments in LA.

I mean, it was a fetishization of wealth, but also of a certain style and of a, you know, SoCal, like, we're going to the beach in the car and like, we don't have school and like, you know, that kind of thing. I think it was like exciting for, for like young people. It was aspirational content. But also like, as somebody that was young back then, like, it was great. Like, it was fun. Like, it was like, I remember visiting L.A. for the first time actually visiting the Snapchat house in Venice Beach, which like they used to have this house that they would have parties in that a giant Snapchat logo on the beach.

It was just like cool and fun. Like, influencer culture was still kind of. mainstream, but it was still like relegated to like young people, like millennials and really Gen Z. It hadn't pervaded like all of politics, all of like older people. And it wasn't taught. I mean, it was toxic in different ways. But like, yeah, it's just funny how like it was such a like different sort of microcosm. Yeah.

And we'd be remiss to say, you know, there was a specific group of people that it was attempting to appeal to. And there was a specific type of person, still the case, but a specific type of person who could make it. And when like A-list influencers as a category was still really gate-kept by, you know, agencies that wanted to help you make money doing what you were doing on YouTube or whatever. Like there was a specific type of person who they would help grow their business. And they were, you know, thin and white.

And if they were gay, they were in the closet. I remember, like, one of the OG YouTubers Kingsley, who was like very funny gay, black man would later go on to talk about like how difficult it was. to be in his position as like a hugely viral sensation that like wasn't being given the opportunities that his peers were getting. Well, I keep thinking of, you know, I feel like 2016 was also like kind of peak Instagram influencer.

You know, this was like the concept of the Instagram boyfriend. Like, you know, it was all these like beautiful blonde women. And there is that famous photo of all the sort of Christian girl, Autumn girls all lined up. And I think there's like one black girl. And everybody's like, oh, what? Like, girl, you're out of place or something. And she talked about at some point kind of that.

But it was, yeah, it was a very, like, homogenized look. I mean, this was like Caitlin Covington. I felt like on the come up of kind of like, I mean, we all like see it in parodies now of like the hat, you know, like the floppy hat and the skinny jeans and the like coffee and the, you know, the boots. The leaf in front of your face, the big leaf. This for me, this point in time,

is when I became really obsessed with the Kardashians. Because I had never watched their reality show, But I became obsessed with them through Instagram because, like, Kim and Kylie in particular just, like, owned so much of the cultural aesthetics of this era. And it became so aspirational. And I remember, like, Kimoji coming out around this time. Like, they were having such a peak in sort of like their family history, but also specifically, like, Kylie was really dominating.

Like, this was obviously like the King Kylie era. And then, like, Kim and Kanye were also really dominant. dominating this era culturally, like life of Pablo and everything that preceded it. Well, this is also like Kanye West was still having his Taylor Swift feud. And, you know, it's interesting you mentioned like, you know, the Kimoji, like emojis, like digital culture was just kind of like entering and becoming mainstream pop culture. And I think of like Drake's views album from this time too was like such a pop culture phenomenon. Also we had lemonade, which was this like visual thing.

And like I just, I felt like, I don't know. I mean, it was such a year for music as what Rihanna's auntie came out that year. It was it was such a year for like pop culture and music and kind of like a lot of shared experiences. Like this is also, I think, because it was before Netflix and I mean, Stranger Things season one was that year and that was still this like collective viewing experience. But we had like Game of Thrones, Marvel movies. Like I don't think there was this like platform fragmentation that had happened yet. We still had like a mono internet culture. 100%.

And speaking of apps, this was when. of the Kardashians released their own app. You could download the Kylie app, the Kim app, the Chloe app, and I was downloading them all. And I was reading what they had to sell. And that data is now being sent to ICE. Yes. Literally. Literally.

And the Kardashians were also borrowing and like stealing and appropriating so much from black culture at this point. Like I remember like them starting to really lean into the trap aesthetic. And like obviously like Kylie and her lips and like the BBL like that wasn't a thing yet. but the aesthetic was starting to be crafted. Yes, and I believe 2016 was the year that Kylie, in one of her Instagram photos, it was like a selfie where she was wearing corn rose.

And Amanda Lestenberg, who's a black actress, commented that, you know, she was basically stealing her culture. And then Amanda Lear released this video that was like, why do you love black culture but hate black people? And of course, that was, you know, people were just awful about it. If you're watching this video and you like my work, please support me on Patreon via the link below or buy a paid subscription to my tech and online culture news

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My Substack newsletter gives you a bi-weekly roundup of everything that I'm seeing and reading and paying attention to online. You can also get my newsletter on Patreon. Once again, the links to everything are below in the description. Every dollar of your support makes such a difference. I think what's so interesting about this era and the makeup in the era is there was something written about this years ago that made me kind of see it. It's like, this is the first time people started to really do their makeup in a way that was actually optimized for the camera instead of IRL. This is where I feel like so much of my nostalgia really is located because I loved,

like, learning how and like perfecting my makeup skills in this era specifically. It was so much more involved than like previous makeup styles. And granted, there are negative aspects to this, but it was like every part of your face had products that were really popular. and techniques that were really popular. So as a college student, it was like the excitement of going out and getting ready was really elevated by like, okay, now I'm going to draw blocky eyebrows. And now I'm going to do a cut crease. And now I'm going to teach my friend how to like use highlighter and like things like that.

Yeah. I was around 17 years old here. And it was the first time that I thought about like wearing makeup like as a creative thing. Like, I was too scared to wear it to school and stuff, but when I would go home after school and hang out with, like, my best friend who was a girl who also turned out to be gay, yay, yay. She was, like, phasing out of makeup at the same time that I was like, I'm a little gay boy. I want to get into makeup. And so I remember she gave me her naked one palette, her naked two palette, all of these eyeliner and mascaras and, like, clinic lipsticks. And it was a very fun time to be getting into makeup because it felt like more is more.

The pictures from it that I took when I had like completed my look are so shocking. But it was so fun and it was a lot of people will attribute the style of the makeup to the Kardashians. And I think they played a significant role in popularizing things like contour and baking and this sort of full coverage beat. But what it really is is drag. And what it really is is like ballroom makeup. As you know, so many of the cultural trends come from queer people. and queer people of color specifically. So I think it's just, it's so interesting.

And it was a political aesthetic because it was a very creative, like celebrating creative freedom. It wasn't necessarily about looking sexy or traditionally, like, good. It was about like how many colors of eye shadow can I put on at once. Every highlight was measured in how blinding it was. How blinding can my highlight be? And it was about making a really cool picture to post. And I loved that then, and I loved that then,

and I love it now. And inshallah, we never see the clean girl aesthetic return because I hate, I hated it. I hated it and I hate it. Strong words, but if you bring up makeup, you know I'm gonna start. It's so interesting, like you said, it is. It is very like drag adjacent, I guess,

that whole style or inspired by, I guess. And it's funny because somebody, I saw TikTok about this a while ago about like fascism and beauty and all this stuff and how like now, obviously, like the makeup styles are much more like muted and kind of like toned down. I mean, back then it was so much about self-expression and like sparkles and like little, like,

you would put little things to hit like little gems or things or like it was so creative and it felt like everybody was kind of like collectively experiencing all of this. In terms of fashion too, I mean, it's funny because it was kind of this like, I would say very like white girl aesthetic, like fashion kind of suburban. But this is also before the era

of like true fast fashion and like T-Moo. You know, so we had kind of the beginnings of it with like Zara and kind of like these influencer brands at like Lord and Taylor and Nordstrom, H&M. But it wasn't completely like we weren't all like trend pilled chasing the like strawberry girl aesthetic from to, you know, the most recent TikTok that we're going to throw away like next week. Is that a real thing? Oh, yeah. We're on to egg girl or whatever. I don't know. You know, like there's all these like micro trends now.

Again, I think because of like algorithms and the nicheification of the internet. And I think like that fashion culture of 2016 was also a very fashion monoculture. The way that I think about this era of fashion and beauty is it almost felt like being in a fandom. And it like, it's not the first example of consumer fandom, but to me like this was a moment where the behaviors and sort of like just like language of fandom began to to apply to just like stuff that you would buy and stuff that you would consume. Because you had the influencers, you had like influencer drama really beginning to peak and to be involved in that you had to like know who all these characters were. And you had to have all these like fan theories of them almost.

And then it was so participatory because it's like you would literally go to Ulta and you would buy like Anastasia Beverly Hills dip brow and a contour kit and like you would gain knowledge and expertise in being able to match like basically what James Charles, was doing. I remember buying like a Carly Bible eye shadow palette and like using every single one and just like coming up with different looks. And there's a reason why the beauty guru chatter subreddit is constantly like guys remember how awesome 2016 was because for beauty that was a huge moment. It also wasn't so much about having to drop like a million dollars on products. It was like do you have the skills to utilize a yellow eyeshadow?

Like, that to me is like such a hallmark of that era. Well, also it was like, I don't know, I think like YouTube, again, was just so important during this era because all those beauty tutorials were happening on YouTube. And you would just like watch. Like, I remember just like watching these like eye makeup tutorials. And that was also when I first started doing like false lashes. I mean, again, I was like on the campaign trail, but I would like bring this like entire like eye thing. Because I was like, I've got to have my lashes like touching my eyebrows, you know,

and then doing the liquid liner as well. And it was an exciting time in the beauty industry. Like, there was a lot of stuff that happens. And that's even before, like, we get to true, like, palette mania and all that. Like, it kind of went off the rails within the next, you know, following couple years. When I think about fashion in 2016, no brand comes to mind faster than Brandy Melville. Yes. Which was, which is like, I think still something that like young girls are interested in, which is its ability to maintain relevance.

through exclusivity is crazy. But I remember, like, even as like a sort of burgeoning little gay boy, I was like, I want to wear Brandy Melville because, like, I want to be like Emmett Chamberlain or like summer McKean or any of these people. That was more like 2018, I feel a little bit. The thing that Brandy Melville did is like it wrote that Instagram girly wave. And then they would use like regular girls like on their Instagram account. And that was like a big status symbol if you were like on that account.

I remember going to New York and. going into a Brandy Melville. And I was, I'm still like a relatively thin man. But when I was in high school, I was so unbelievably skinny, like so bony. And I remember putting on, they had this t-shirt that said, raise boys and girls the same. And I was like, this is peak activism. And I need the shirt now. And I did buy the shirt.

But when I tell you that even on what I must have weighed 115 pounds, that shirt was so goddamn tight on me. That is crazy. I also remember those deep V-neck shirts that had like a shoelace between the V. Yeah, it would have like the criss-cross and then you would wear it with like a black choker. Yes! That was the going out uniform in 2016. It's funny, Matt, that you mentioned a graphic tea because like, again, like this is pre-fast fashion, but we are starting to see kind of like Instagram-driven clothing and like these types of like phrases,

phrases specifically around like Clinton and liberalism. This is like, again, it gets really off the rails pretty quickly when we have like 2017 happen and like the merchification of feminism and girl boss. I remember at the end of 2016, somebody gave me a tote that was just one of those like canvas toots that said, carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man. And I was like, oh, that's so funny. Like, yes, male tears, you know, like that vibe. And then once, you know, yeah, once like Trump won, I think like, then it was just

this like race to cash in. I mean, this was still when like, I think because 2016 was like before the 2017 kind of beginning of like resistance culture, there was still this idea that like we solved racism, we solved sexism, we solved homophobia. Like if you're bringing that stuff up, you're like such a buzzkill because like we're about to get a woman president. Yes. I mean, Hamilton.

This was like Hamilton's cultural ascendancy was 2016. I was doing a project a few months ago where I was revisiting. the Taylor Kanye feud. And I was reading all of these articles that had come out in BuzzFeed, in like all of these online like culture websites at the time. And it really struck me how Hamilton references were so like omnipresent. They were everywhere. It was such a like huge moment in the culture was like talking about Hamilton, which is

so funny looking back. Another big thing that year that summer was Pokemon Go. Did you guys play that? I was addicted to it. I was addicted to it. I was addicted. I downloaded it on my phone for like five minutes and I was like, nope, not doing this. Not walking around.

It was like running around. And I was on the campaign trail. So like I was in like the most random cities. I was in Ohio cat all over being like, hold on. There's like a squirtle at the gas station. Everyone's playing Pokemon Go. But we need to get them to Pokemon Go to the polls. Crazy.

I remember working a like minimum wage job at a movie theater. and my coworkers and I would take like smoke breaks where we would pretend to be smoking, but we were actually running around the parking lot playing Pokemon Go. I mean, one thing that that did, and it was so huge, I was just looking back at the numbers, and like, it's crazy the success that that app had.

I mean, it goes back to this idea of like mobile apps becoming so king, where like people were very excited to download, like, a new mobile app that tracked your location, and there was no concern for any of that. But it was also just this like collectivism and excitement and like shared experiences. and like social bonds and like there was this positivity to it, you know? It was like, I don't know, it was really wholesome.

Yes. And I think you touched on this a minute ago, but one of the most important things that I think people have to understand in like the recent history of the internet and why it feels very different now than it used to is just that it's so much bigger now. And especially post-2020 with this like boom of TikTok where so many people became relatively famous to different audiences. And we've seen that replicated across a million different platforms, like Twitch, and to a lesser extent, YouTube,

but especially on TikTok, because so many people got so famous so quickly. And it just feels like now everyone has their own set of celebrities. Whereas I think one of the things in terms of internet culture that was really exciting in 2016 is that it was sort of the last time that we had a wave of celebrities, celebrities that were all of ours. And I do think there's something about celebrity that is good in the sense that it brings us all together.

Nikki Glazer was just talking about this before she hosted the Golden Globe. She was like, I actually think it's good that we can like all form opinions on a common thing and have these like shared realities that are so rare now. It was this like mono internet. Like you all, everybody kind of understood the references. Like I think of the memes of that time.

Really, they weren't niche. Like now it seems like to understand memes. you have to be, like, so up with, like, all the, like, years of lore around, like, a specific community to get, like, a reference that has, like, 20 million layers to it. Yes, trying to explain to my boyfriend, this diner still serves Coke the old-fashioned way. It's, like, it's not even worth it. I think of one of the first kind of, like, video visual memes that I read about this actually extensively in my book was the don't judge challenge on musically. So, Musically had just become popular. Like, it had launched a couple years before. We didn't really have huge musers. We had Lauren Gray.

We had Bryce Hall coming up a little bit. They were mostly young, Jacob Sartorias. But the Don't Judge challenge was like, basically the first kind of proto-Tick-Tock trend before TikTok was TikTok. Do you guys remember this challenge? It's like, do you love me? Do you think I'm pretty?

Yes. Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. Right? So you basically, it was to this like, OMI, I don't know how you say, saying, like cheerleader song, which was a huge hit and actually musically made that song a hit,

which was also very, very, novel for the time, but you would put like cue tips in your ears. Like you would, you were pretending to be an ugly person. I remember the fake acne really vividly, especially as someone who had acne at the time. It's like, this sucks. Yeah, you would put fake acne, but you'd also just put like black dots on your face. You would like black out one of your teeth. Like the goal was like, look at how ugly I am. And then you would like put your hand to the camera, pull it away. And then you'd like be in like a full beat, you know? Yep, 100%. And it's so funny because like Now we have just like transformation videos. Also just like transitions in videos were like very novel at that time.

Definitely such a predecessor to TikTok. Also one of the big standout like communal memes of this era to me was the clowns epidemic of like summer 2016. What do you remember from that because I have so many like vivid clown memories associated with this era? I just remember like there was a new evil clown like every week and people were tweeting a lot about like clown news. There were literally clowns on my campus.

Maybe it's because we were college students, but like walking around campus, I was terrified of running into a clown, and there were multiple clown sightings. Like, a clown chased a girl across my campus. One of my friends was, like, driving through, like, cornfields in Ohio at night and, like, drove past a clown. So I genuinely remember living with this, like, the fear of being stalked by a clown. But it was, like, sort of a manufactured thing because it became a whole thing online of, like, oh, there are clowns everywhere. And then like, people were like, oh, I could like make a thing around myself if I dress up like a clown and go outside somewhere. So it's a very satanic panic. It was monoculture enough that it spawned all these copycats from like viral videos. And then it kind of died out because one of the clowns got shot.

Like someone shot at one of the clowns. And then people decided to stop dressing up as clowns to scare people. Very American end to a meme. It's so funny because like so much of like online culture was participatory back back. then and people were excited to participate and social media still felt fun and new and engaging and people were sharing their lives actively like posting yourself with the coffee cup or dressing up as a clowns for Halloween like I knew a lot of people that dress as clowns that year for Halloween but I don't know it was just it was kind of fun I don't want to act like it was perfect in June 2016

we saw Brexit happen and that really sent a shockwave to Europe and I think like I mean I was talking to a British friend of mine recently about this, about 2016. And she was saying that, like, for them, like, 2016 is less, like, sunshine rainbows, nostalgic LA. It is kind of that, but it was more like, Brexit cut that short earlier than, like, where I would say, like, the Trump election cut it short for us in November. We had a few more good months, maybe. But, you know, there was like a lot of crazy stuff.

We'll get into that. But, like, I think, like, things, the vibes shift started to change a little bit around, like, the fall. If you guys remember, too, in October, that's when they announced. VINE was shutting down. And that felt so unprecedented, because in my mind, at least at the time, it didn't seem like an era where a social media platform could just end. Whereas now it's like, we're used to hearing like, okay, TikTok is getting banned or like

huge swaths of the internet are now going to be like blocked. But at the time, it was sort of like, how can Vine end? Like how could a social media platform just like one day like not be there anymore? It was shocking. I mean, it was also, you know, funny because the reason that Vine went out of business was because they ultimately couldn't help creators monetize. And this was a time when, like, creators were starting to monetize and they just couldn't kind of function.

And, you know, Vine was also not an algorithmic feed. And 2016 is also the year that Twitter and a bunch of other platforms, including Instagram, et cetera, began to roll out algorithmic feeds. And I think that that was, it was the last year that a lot of us experienced a chronological internet. I remember when they made that change and I was like, no, fuck this. but now I'm kind of like, show me what I want to see, you know. Well, that's why it felt like you could, and you could,

you could scroll from the beginning to the end of your timeline, and then you could be done with the app, at least for a few hours until like the timeline refreshed. And there are things that I miss about that. And then obviously there are like elements of our culture that are only possible because of algorithmic feeds. I mean, when Instagram announced this in June 2016 and saying like, hey, we're pivoting to this algorithmic feed,

like there was backlash. Like people were signing petitions, like, like changed that. They were like, what does this mean? It's funny because they didn't even really understand how bad it was going to get. Like they were just sort of dipping their toes into it. And it was mostly as a way, like you said, of like people following more people and kind of actually not being able to reach the end of their feed and needing like sort of the more relevant content surfaced. You know, by the end of 2016, like Vine announces it shut down in October. Closer and closer to the election, maybe this was just because I was covering that election. Things started to seem dark and darker.

like the Trump rallies throughout that year were always pretty dark. Like they were like, build the wall. Like it was really weird, but it was still kind of seen as a joke. But in the final couple weeks of the election, I mean, Trump's rallies were just so much significantly bigger than Hillary's and had so much more energy to them. I do remember being like, oh, this feels nefarious and bleak. And then of course we had the election. Where were you guys election night, 2016?

That was literally one of the worst nights of my entire life. I mean, I was the campus editor of my student political newspaper. I started to realize earlier in the day that something was wrong. And then that night we were doing in election night live stream, very 2016 of us. And after they called it for Trump, I just remember, like, sobbing hysterically with my roommates. And that was like such a low, terrible moment. It just felt like being like a living nightmare. So election day in 2016 was wild.

Like I said, about two weeks earlier, I had turned 18. So this was my first time voting. And I was so happy. happy. I was like, make sure to register. I think I actually registered before I turned 18 so that I could meet the deadline, but it was, it was okay to do that as long as you were 18 on election day. So I was like, my first time voting is going to be for the first female president. I'm going to tell my grandchildren that one day. And I remember I went to the voting booth with my parents before school. And then I went to school and my parents flew to Florida to move my grandparents into assisted living, my grandparents

who had voted for Trump. So I was alone that night at home and I just watched on like our little TV in the kitchen. I remember it started to come in and I was so excited. I like poured myself a glass of like wine that my parents had sitting around. I was like, I'm an adult and the future is female. And you were liberal wine momming it out. I was literally an 18 year old gay boy liberal wine mom in my New Jersey suburban home. And yeah, I remember they called it at around 2 a.m. Eastern, I think, but like I

I was like, there's still a possibility that like something could happen because like I didn't know how fucking elections worked. And I stayed up until five. I remember sleeping in until like, you know, noon. I didn't go to school until two thirds of the way through the next day. And I came in and I saw my art teacher and we started sobbing into each other's arm. Because also like, can I just say in that school where there were so many like hashtag conservative kids who like now it's like a thing for kids to be like super pro Trump. But like at the time it was like I was like. like, whoa, like, I'm in school with a bunch of crazy people.

And it was just like me and some of the girls who were like Hillary, Hillary, like, we canvassed, you know? We were in young Democrats. It was like an identity marker to be like, you know, a kid Democrat where I was, at least. And when I came in, it was like, I saw people in the hallways and I was like humiliated. I mean, I think it was this like shock to the system, right? I mean, I was actually in the Hilton at the Trump hotel with Trump when he won, which at no, most of other reporters there were like, I can't believe this. But anyway, so Trump wins that night.

Clinton concedes the next day. And then if you guys remember in New York on the subways, they had everybody posting like post-it notes. And it was all these like messages of encouragement to each other. And like sad, there was this like collective kind of shock. And I feel like that event, and I know Brexit for people probably earlier, you know, if you were in Europe, but it was this kind of collective realization that people had lost trust in like the media

and that we weren't in a shared reality. Because all of the networks were promising us that Hillary was going to win and that this guy was a joke. This is also what sets off like the beginning of the tech lash or people very quickly blamed Facebook. And like it seemed like things were just extreme chaos. Yet Obama was still in office, you know, throughout the end of that year. It's interesting because Trump ran that first campaign on slogans that were very cruel

and still are very cruel, but also are now like commonplace things that we hear in American society all the time, like the dehumanization of immigrants. and of brown people more generally as like criminals and rapists. Like I'll never forget the time that he launched his campaign when he came up up or down the escalator. I can't remember which way he was going. And then in his speech, he was like, we're gonna get rid of all these like rapists and criminals

referring to Latin Americans. And there was this sense when he won the first time of like looking around at your neighbors and being like, which ones have you supported this? Because I thought we were all against it. It's interesting. People are like, especially I think older people are like, you know, things weren't this.

divided when we were a kid, but I'm like, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I think it's a bigger conversation and a more complicated conversation that people usually have about like, oh, well, we're so divided now and it's, and it's social media's fault. I think it's more complicated than that. But I also think there are so many people who weren't surprised by the outcome of the 2016 election. I remember the first SNL episode after the election, there was this watch party skit and it was a group of friends in a city and an apartment and there were white friends and black friends. And the white friends as as the polling came in state by state, they were all like, oh no, how could this happen?

And all of the black people in the skit were like, looking at each other and laughing because they were like, basically we've known this is a very racist place and people will reflect that in in the ballot booth. So it was more shocking to some than others. But as a very sheltered gay boy, I was like, whoa. But it was shocking to black people too. Like, I mean, of course, no one knows more than like marginalized people how like bigoted America really can be. But if you look at the polling of who was expected to win and I think the media narrative that was set, people did believe that like, you know, Trump was in power.

I'm curious, you know, like just looking through, I feel like we've gone through, you know, reliving our own memories of 2016. But I want to talk about like why 2016 nostalgia just seems to be taking hold now. And just given some of the stuff in 2016, like 2016 was this like really pin. pivotal year where we saw kind of the beginnings of a lot of things, whether it's algorithmic feed, Trumpism, like all this stuff. That was like the first year, all that stuff started. Why is everyone nostalgic for 2016 and not 2015, which was arguably the last good year that we had before all of those things? Well, I feel like now that like 2016 to 2026, it's a very definitive like this is 10 years

of Trump because even though he started campaigning before 2016, it's like obviously the the 2016 election was the decisive moment where it was undeniable that like Trump's influence was here and it was going to have this like staying power. And I think that even if people aren't vocalizing their 2016 nostalgia around like it's because this was right before Trump got elected, that to me is where the sentiment comes from. It's like this was a time period before we got into the craziness and like the unhingedness culturally, politically of like Trump's presidencies. It does have so much to do, I think,

with the way that Trump has shaped the culture. And even for people who have supported Trump since 2016, or at least did back then, he has changed American culture for the last 10 years in the sense that, like, I remember during Trump won, the news cycle every day was just what did he tweet? And that was the thing that you would talk about over dinner is like, oh, Kaffee.

And not to say that there wasn't bad shit going on with like previous administrations or anything. But we just had the start of this like extremely tabloidy, almost like royal family-esque politics in America that we haven't been able to escape from for 10 years. I think so much of that truly began in 2017, like you're saying, like the kofi tweet, the like covering every, like, Trump was treated as such as sort of a side show and a joke prior to his election because it was assumed he would lose that like I think you're right that people are kind of just wanting to go back to maybe like the end of the end of the, the Obama era when everybody was liberals, right? And I think there wasn't as much awareness maybe of

stuff. But it's funny because 2016 was like the worst year. And one of the most popular memes from 2016 was actually fuck 2016. I remember being at a New Year's party for 2017 and people had these like fuck 2016 buttons. I want to show you guys a quick clip from a John Oliver segment that ran actually at the end of 2016. 2016 has been an uncommonly shitty year from the ongoing crisis in Syria, to Zika, to Ryan Locti being a douche, to a seemingly endless string of celebrity deaths, including just this week, Leonard Cohen. I'm calling it early. 2016 has been the fucking worst. So I forgot that Prince and David Bowie died in 2016, because obviously, like, those moments are not making anyone's, like, highlight real. And I do think that, like, with this,

with this current like internet culture moment that's happening, like the 2016, like people sharing, like photos from 2016, things like that. It is the epitome of like a rose-colored glasses moment. Obviously, no one is going to talk about like or even necessarily remember the true like low points of that year. It's more so like what were the cultural vibes of that year. I just want to quickly run through a few other things that happened in 2016. So we had the death of David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Muhammad Ali, Carrie, Fisher. There was intensifying police violence. Obviously, Black Lives Matter I kicked off the year before. But there was a lot of protests. White nationalist politics were arising. The Pulse nightclub shooting

that massacred LGBTQ people. We had continued economic precarity. People in Yemen, Myanmar and elsewhere were suffering through active warfare, humanitarian crises. We had the ongoing Syrian civil war. The Flint water crisis, like, it was actually a brutal year. And that's what we're what nostalgia does, right? We remember the good parts. We forget the bad parts. And, you know, like, I think there is a great chance that in 10 years, people might be like, uh, the 2026 vibes were so golden. And I hope when that happens that I can remember exactly how I'm feeling about the world right now, because I do trust, I actually can say for certain that in 2016, there were all of those things that were happening, especially I remember, like, a year after marriage quality became the law of

the land the Poles nightclub shooting happened and i was like oh the world is not what i thought it was but you know i also will say like if the pulse nightclub shooting happened now i think there would be a great part of this country that would vocally like make excuses for it like the culture has definitely shifted and every year the shittiness of every year stands out to us i think as the year comes to a close where we're always like oh thank god we're putting this one behind us but like i'm trying to decide if there's merit to the idea that it's gotten worse i do think think there is. I do think there is. Yeah, I think 2016 was the last. And again, I think a lot of this has to do with the technological shifts that happened and the Trump presidency kind of simultaneously

happening together. Like that was the last year, although there was so much news that year. People weren't in this like constant state of alertness on social media. Like they weren't doom scrolling yet. Like again, algorithms had not taken over yet. Like e-commerce had not taken over all these tech companies were still funded by venture capital. So they weren't like, in shittifying yet either. And like, I do think that like 2016 was the first of what ultimately became a lot of very bad years and probably were still in the very bad years. Yeah, I also think that if you were trying to do a look back at a like post 2020 year, because the internet has gotten so fragmented and culture has gotten so fragmented, it's getting increasingly harder to be like,

to even say these were the big memes of the year. Like when you try to do like even like a meme Roundup, which was a really popular thing in like the late 2010s, it's like, well, what were the shared memes that everyone can recognize? It's getting harder and harder to distill it into any sort of monocultural moment. Which is why Hawk Tua was such a big deal, because nobody breaks through like that anymore. I'm curious kind of like why you think this trend has gone viral. Again, like we've seen nostalgia before. There's nostalgia for like early 2010's culture or like indie sleighs. Like we've seen nostalgia. People are. always nostalgic for different, you know, like earlier times, right? But why do you think

2016 specifically has become this like nostalgia trend where it's, it's really like inciting like feelings in people? One reason I think that it's going so viral is because I also think that a lot of people's camera roles and social media presences were really in effect in 2016. Like, if I was trying to do nostalgia for, like, let's say, 2011, my camera wall and my phone doesn't go back that far. I would have to, like, revisit the archives, like physical archives. But in 2016, because this was an era that was so social media focused, it's much easier to just, like, find stuff from that year to post now. I also think that, like, currently, like January, 2026, the news cycle is so bad. I think people are really grateful for a moment.

moment of levity among like seeing so much, so many images of ice, so many images of violence, the idea that World War III is about to kick off, like, all of this political, like, discourse that's happening right now is so brutal that I honestly think that contributes to that rose-colored glasses feeling of like, oh, but 10 years ago, things were so great. Well, we've seen a rise in nostalgia throughout the 2020s, right? Like, I think nostalgia always comes, it becomes pervasive in times of crisis. I just think it's interesting that we're nostalgic for the first bad year and not the actual last good year, which would have been 2015. I also think people have a desire to revise history and it makes it feel like more palatable to imagine that years that were actually bad might have actually been good.

Like there's almost like a reverse psychology. Yeah, which I think is sort of a hallmark of nostalgia. I also think that it, I mean, 2016 was the beginning of like the Gen Z. internet and I think it was I mean Matt you mentioned you turned 18 I think it was like that time was like a very pivotal time in a lot of like millennial's lives because we were all like in our 20s and gen z's lives because they were all in their teens and or you know young basically and I think it's interesting that the primary people that are participating in this trend almost exclusively are people that are millennial in gen z like there's not really like gen xers or boomers that

are talking about how great 2016 was true I also think another reason why this is having such a moment right now is because there's now a generation of influencers who have kind of fallen off. Like a lot of the big beauty gurus who people aren't really closely following anymore, this is a huge opportunity for them to get the kind of likes on a photo that they haven't gotten in years by being like, this is what I was doing in 2016. I have absolutely noticed that like all of these people who like have sort of moved on with their lives from being like professional online celebrities

have suddenly tapped into this. And it's like, bam, engagement, which does trickle down to just like normal, to the rest of us normals. It also seems like, I don't know, there's this like collective grieving to it. People will be like, you know, my worst day in 2016, and it's like you wake up on the beach in Venice Beach and you're flipping bottles and having a fidget spinner

or whatever, you know, like. And it feels like a lot of like, honestly, like Gen Z people, maybe like morning they're trying. childhood and also like millennials are old now. Like we're old. And I feel like it's like a morning of our youth as well of like, wow, we were so innocent at that time and like we actually had it really good. Now millennials are becoming into their like late 30s or 40s, right?

Where it's like the stakes are higher. Things are real. Jen's years are approaching the age of 30, which like in culture is this sort of milestone. And it just feels like a lot of people, you know, like these two young younger generations that have been denied, honestly, so many signs of adulthood, finally, like, recognizing that they're, like, old, basically. I also think to me, and this is, like, the hopeful part of me, that there's, like, a retrofuturist aspect to it of, like,

let's get back to this, you know? Like, things have been really, really, really bad, increasingly dire for 10 years. But, and this just might be the New York City, like, newly elected Zoron bubble that's surrounding me fine. I'm willing to accept that. But I'm hopeful that we are watching in real time a sort of collapse of an era. It's obviously a brutal and violent collapse in this country. But like I think it's undeniable that, for example, like the Make America Great Again movement,

the best years of that are behind us. And now it's very clear to anyone on any side of the aisle that the right is scrambling to figure out what is the future of the right. And I think in there, there is also room for the left and anywhere left of center, right? Leftist Democrats to come together and decide what is the future of an actual opposition. And I know I'm making this entirely political, but like I do think there is a sense, at least among my friends and I, that like, there is a future ahead of us that could look better because we are at a time of transition and a time of reinvention in all sorts of ways. And looking at 2016, to me, personally, it brings me a feeling of like, what elements of this could we get back to? Not a monoculture, but maybe a culture where we're all more connected than we've been for the last few years.

Maybe a culture in which we're reaching out to our neighbors more. Maybe a culture in which, I don't know, we just like share more of a reality than we have. And again, maybe that's wildly optimistic and you can tell me, Matt, you're full of shit. But let a girl dream. I mean, I think so much of the nostalgia around this trend is about community also and, like, building these shared experiences with each other and being like, remember when we were all in this together? Exactly. And again, like, having worked on Zoron's campaign and I've worked on a few campaigns in recent years, some for people who I like, you know, it was more of a reluctant participation, but working on Zoron's campaign and getting out and getting out the vote and all that stuff, it's like you felt a sense of collectiveness in New York. city that I haven't felt anywhere since before Trump got an office the first time. And that was felt all over the world.

I mean, look at the whole meme of like, that's my mayor. I live in Switzerland. You know what I mean? And there is this desire to get back to a place where fundamentally we can live in the same reality and care about each other and experience things together and not feel so isolated and not live, you know, siloed in these very different algorithms. Like, I don't know. I have hope.

Whatever. I know. It is hopeful. I mean, I think it's funny. to think about 2016, too, because it's, like, obviously, like, housing in an affordability, like wage stagnation, surveillance, capitalism, political polarization, like, all of these things. Like, social media was already profit-driven. Like, there were a lot of these problems under the radar.

I think a lot of them were pushed under the radar when Obama was president and Clinton would have continued. I think that's probably why she lost in large case. It's like she continued to sort of deny actually the bleak realities that were sort of bubbling underneath. And I think like what you're saying about Zoran is like so real, but also like Zoran acknowledges those realities, right? And like and seeks to actually remedy them. And I think that that's really good because it's like we don't want to slip back into like the level of denialism that a lot of us privileged people like had in 2016. But it was nice. And like I think it was a different

internet. It was bleak then, but we didn't know how bleak things were going to get. So now it seems less bleak. But yeah, I would like to think that it's. like a 10-year cap. I think that'll really happen when Trump dies. To me, that's going to be the real pivotal sort of moment. And that's barreling towards us. The drain is being circled. It'll be really interesting to see if there's any kind of like 2017 nostalgia because I don't think that there will be. Also like, I don't know if this is a thing, but I feel like people are more drawn to even years because I remember there also being kind of a conversation about 2014 nostalgia happening in 2024 and we just kind of skipped 2015. I know. I

I saw that the 2014, 2012, certainly no nostalgia for 2008 because it was the financial crisis and stuff. But like, I mean, Matt, you're talking about like your first vote for Clinton. Like I think for so many millennials, like, Obama was like the first kind of president that millennials could like mass vote for. And so, you know, that was kind of a nice moment. It's interesting because also we've seen people kind of talk about 2020 and romanticize 2020 and go back and say like, you know, I really miss the early days of the pandemic. I really missed, you know, slowing down and baking sourdough. And finally, for the first time ever, I've seen leftists acknowledge online that actually that was a time of great solidarity back then as well.

And like, maybe we do want to get back to some of that. Whereas I think, like, sometimes when these big moments happen, like, people are so eager to transition out of them or move past them. They don't want to, like, go back and think about them. I think doing true 2020 nostalgia would require acknowledging that the pandemic is ongoing. So I don't think that we'll ever see people do that because if they try to do that, people will be like, okay, but we have like hundreds of thousands of people still dying from COVID. So you can't really be as nostalgic. But I think like, yeah, people people are eager for

those like times when things seem quieter and easier and simpler and like more collective. And for whatever it's worth, like urban decay, I believe they phased out the naked pal. I know. Crazy transition. Urban decay. Urban decay phased out the naked one palette. for a time, they discontinued it. And then they brought it back. I don't think they were feeling nostalgic. I think that was obviously a very calculated business move. But if it brings anyone any sense of like, again, this retro future is like, we can get back there.

You know, naked palettes back on sale, baby. Mack, bring back the studio fix concealer. Oh my gosh. I mean, I will say for Christmas this year, I asked for a bunch of like makeup products for the first time in literally years. and I was feeling very, like, 2016 when I was getting them. I got, I asked for like an eye shadow palette for the first time in a long time. Well, you guys, thank you so much for joining me on this trip down memory lane. It was so great chatting with you today.

Of course. I can't wait until we do 2018. Ooh, Visco Girls. Exactly. Thanks for having me, Taylor. All right, that's it for this episode. If you like my show, please buy a paid subscription to my tech and online culture newsletter on Substack at UserMag.co.

That's Usermag.com. Or you can support me on Patreon where I do bonus content, monthly live streams, Q&As, and more. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User. See you then.