From thrifted graphic tees to the return of Polaroid-style pictures, trends once left in 2016 are resurfacing across social media, sparking comparisons between the two eras among teens and young adults and leading to a new trend called “2026 is the new 2016”.
Ever since Covid-19, there has been a sense of seclusion in terms of hobbies, with people spending most of their time indoors. People were primarily reading, cooking, and playing video games, which, although still prominent, is becoming less popular as people pick up their old hobbies.
These old hobbies include, doing yoga, meditating, playing outdoor sports, and gardening which were all extremely common in 2016 when people were spending more time outdoors. On TikTok, there is a large variety of influencers and content creators that are promoting these hobbies in their daily vlogs where they show their viewers what they do everyday.
In addition, after this trend surfaced at the beginning of the new year, many creators began posting their old content from 2016 that had dramatic filters, overexaggerated lip-syncing, and bizarre fashion trends.
Over the past year, on TikTok, many videos have demonstrated humor similar to what was seen in 2016 on Vine. A trend that was extremely popular in 2025, was the Coldplay kiss cam trend where people would reenact a viral video that showed a scandal from a concert. The humor displayed in this trend and other similar trends are reminiscent of the humor commonly displayed on Vine and have caused many teens and young adults to express their nostalgic feelings.
The most prominent thing that has become increasingly similar to what was seen a decade ago, is the fashion. In stores, there has been an increase in the number of low-rise jeans being sold with less-and-less high-rise and baggy jeans available. This causes people to wonder whether other fashion trends such as cheetah print are going to resurface as well.
Some may argue that although the two years are currently very similar, like all trends, soon it will die out after a couple of months. Although this is a very possible occurrence, in recent years, society has been slowly showing similarities to 2016 even before the trend became viral.
For example, Crocs are a pair of shoes that were commonly seen in the early to mid 2000s but have become extremely popular ever since 2020. Other fashion trends that are being seen after years of being less common have been the use of bold colors and vibrant patterns. These have all been coming back slowly over the past few years which proves that it is more than just a trend, and might end up becoming even bigger as the year goes on.
Overall, with there being so many similarities between 2016 and 2026 in more just fashion, it is very likely that 2026 is going to be just like 2016, although this can only be proven as the year goes by.
