Why Everyone Is Posting 2016: The Great Meme Reset, the Mannequin Challenge and a Feed Before the Algorithm

If your feed has been all Valencia filters and Mannequin Challenge clips for two weeks, nothing is wrong with the algorithm. The internet is rewinding on purpose. “A flood of TikToks and Instagram posts,” Complex writes, is looking back at what defined 2016, and the phrase attached to nearly all of them is “2026 is the new 2016.”

The trend took off in the first days of January. Per Complex, citing the BBC, TikTok searches for “2016” spiked more than 400% during the first week of the year, and searches for “2016 makeup” rose 600% between Jan. 1 and Jan. 11. By Jan. 21, AZFamily reports, the #2016 hashtag had been used in more than 2.1 million TikTok posts and more than 38 million on Instagram, and PetaPixel, citing the BBC, says more than 56 million videos had used TikTok’s own 2016 filter, a hazy, pink-toned effect built to mimic early Instagram.

The celebrities got there fast

The famous took it up almost immediately. Kylie Jenner posted a carousel of 2016 pictures, including shots of her in a Supreme box-logo hoodie and early Kylie Cosmetics products, with a caption that became the trend’s motto:

Selena Gomez and Dua Lipa have posted similar throwbacks, and Tumblr welcomed the year back with its own compilation, PetaPixel reports. Complex adds that Rae Sremmurd posted a decade-old Mannequin Challenge video set to their 2016 hit “Black Beatles,” while Khalid, Karlie Kloss and Charlie Puth shared their own highlights. The year was soundtracked by Drake, Justin Bieber, Rihanna and The Chainsmokers, and AZFamily notes it also gave us Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Stranger Things and Taylor Swift winning Album of the Year for 1989.

What people are actually missing

Forbes traced the phrase, via PetaPixel, to an ironic Gen Z joke that grew into “the Great Meme Reset” late last year, an attempt to push back on low-effort, AI-generated content by posting older, familiar memes. The nostalgia then widened. Stylus editor Katie Devlin told Vogue the pull is a simpler internet:

We had just started to evolve past Tumblr-era cynicism, and from a social media perspective, the algorithms were less aggressive, and surveillance was less of a concern.

Katie Devlin, Vogue, via Complex

Author Kate Kennedy gave The New York Times the structural version. In 2016 Instagram still showed photos in order, and it began testing algorithmic sorting that June, as PetaPixel notes. “Chronological feeds felt like democracies — every post had an equal chance of being seen,” Kennedy said. A psychologist who studies nostalgia, Clay Routledge, told Today, as quoted by InsideHook, that people also reach for nostalgia when they feel anxious about the future.

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None of it is a claim that 2016 was good. Complex points out the year also brought Brexit, Donald Trump’s first election win, the Zika outbreak and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and that “Fuck 2016” was trending by the end of it, a reminder that the past always looks better from a distance. InsideHook’s writer says most people would rather focus on Snapchat filters than the rest.

Culture writer Katie Rosseinsky gave The Independent the line that captures the mood best:

Perhaps the fact that even a real dud of a year seems like a lovely refuge from the dark drama of 2026 speaks volumes, too,

Katie Rosseinsky, The Independent, via Complex

Google searches related to 2016 hit an all-time high in mid-January, PetaPixel says. The questions people typed in most: “why is everyone posting 2016 pics.”

Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.