A decade has passed since the mannequin challenge went viral and some of us Gen Zers have never felt so old. Why are we missing the Tumblr aesthetic? The 2016 vibes are back in our hearts — and on our Instagram feeds!
If you haven’t seen the Snapchat’s flower crown filter fill your social media feed once again, I will fill you in with some background: at the start of 2026, a trend of posting old photos from 2016 went viral on Instagram and TikTok, with people longing for that 2016 vibe — yes, this is already my third time saying “vibe,” sorry I can’t help it. 2016 is stuck in my brain and “vibe” became my go-to word again. Oops! Jokes aside, the word “vibe” was in fact used a lot by the younger generation in 2016 as a way of determining an aesthetic that you could see in photos and the way people dressed and behaved.
“Tumblr girls” was a term that originated to reference a fashion style popularized by girls that posted in the Tumblr app, which was a social media platform that became really popular in 2016. Those girls were the coolest and were the vibe everyone wanted to go for back then. They would have their messy hair on a bun — dyed in light pink if you were THE girl. They would have the best skinny jeans on, a jacket around the waist, choker necklaces and for the radical ones, ride a skateboard!
The 2016 trend definitely caught me off guard. After all, we were just in the “clean girl” era quite literally last month. In my eyes, that’s the opposite of the Tumblr vibe. The messy hair became slicked back buns and the jeans — oh, the jeans! — have not been that skinny for a long, long time. So imagine how surprising it was to see a carousel of 2016 photos on Hailey Bieber’s Instagram with those hyper-saturated Instagram filters. Yes, she did post that.
The year 2016 was also marked by viral funny trends such as the bottle-flip challenge and, of course, the dog filter from Snapchat. But even when acknowledging the power of that year, a question has risen: why are we so nostalgic for that era in particular? Don’t bother pretending you don’t miss making the peace sign with your hands literally every two seconds!
Of course, this movement started because we hit the decade mark, but this nostalgia comes from a deeper place.
To begin with, 2016 coincided with current Allegheny students’ elementary and middle school years, an era of fewer responsibilities. The viral pictures taken in front of the iconic pink angel wings wall in Los Angeles suddenly became an old memory. So now, as we begin to live our adult lives with adult responsibilities, it makes sense that we might start to long for those simpler times, when paying bills was a distant fear and posting a picture of your Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino was your biggest flex.
The extreme technological era we live in now is also very different from a decade ago. The term “chronically online,” which represents people who spent an unusual amount of time navigating through social media and are aware of every trend or gossip that is currently blowing up, was not a thing yet. The need to compare ourselves to others when scrolling through our feeds and “For You” pages has grown, giving people more anxiety than ever. According to Yale Medicine, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy states in his advisory that “frequent social media use may be associated with distinct changes in the developing brain,” which can affect different functions, such as emotional learning and behavior, impulse control, and emotional regulation. The exhaustion of those feelings has suddenly taken Gen Zers like myself who are terrified of being cringe, to join the millennials in a search for intense and deeper connections in an AI-generated online world.
It’s funny how things change. Being cringe in 2016 was defined by reposting your mom’s “happy birthday” post for you — independence and maturity are a perfect example of the vibe people wanted to give online back then. But now, what’s cringe for us? Sadly, being cringe has become any spontaneous and fun action you take that could embarrass you, like singing karaoke at a karaoke bar. Like, are we serious? Recently, it feels like people are stepping on eggshells all the time to avoid being laughed at, but what’s the fun in that?
Alongside that, we can’t forget about the wave of fitness and wellness that has taken over society in recent years — is everyone you follow also running a marathon all of the sudden? This phenomenon has caused a lot of people to abruptly change their lifestyle, adapting to a more consistent workout routine. Others have been leaving nights out in the past and reducing their alcohol consumption.
One of the criticisms around this extremely healthy lifestyle is its very low flexibility. I am tired of seeing how many miles you ran or how healthy you ate this week; 2016’s spontaneity is hitting our feeds because people are ready to ride their hoverboards again. The monotony is out of your feed, but the oversize wine glasses are back.
When the hashtag “2026 is the new 2016” pops up, it’s common to see pictures of friends having fun, traveling or on a night out — at that time, every teenage girl was dreaming of going out with Kylie Jenner in her pink hair era. The brand PINK was on top of the world and don’t even mention the “Juicy” sweatpant sets.
When I asked some of my 20-year-old friends this week what was so special about 2016 for them, some said that global politics and economy didn’t have many problems back then. Of course you think that babe, you were 10! In reality, 2016 was marked by various global catastrophes, including the Zika virus epidemic in Latin America and the large-scale refugee crisis caused by the war in Syria. That year also included the death of rock icons like David Bowie and Prince. If you are wondering why you are seeing edits of Prince’s “Purple Rain” song all over your TikTok, this trend might be your answer. In addition, in 2016 Donald Trump was elected to his first term as president of the United States; this fact is a good example of a political moment with global stakes from 2016 that is playing out again in 2026. Consequently, I wonder if this wave of longing for a prior decade is realistic or even rational.
All this to say that nostalgia is a tricky thing. Our minds are good at remembering only the good parts of the story. Do we really want 2026 to be the new 2016? I am not sure myself. However, I do miss my naivety from back then — and my ultimate “Tumblr vibe pictures,” of course.
