A wave of nostalgia remembering the pop culture, music and media of 2016 has surged as decade-old pictures and references resurface on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, X and Facebook. On TikTok, the hashtag #2016 has over 2 million posts as users revisit a time they deem as more carefree.
Howard students, most of whom were ages 8 to 13 in 2016, said they remember it as a formative period marked by early social media, pre-adolescence and major political shifts in the United States.
D’angelo Sands, a first-year marketing major from Corpus Christi, Texas, said the year stands out as a moment when he first became aware of his racial identity.
“That’s when I realized that the color of our skin has meaning, and some people think that being Black is different than any other race,” Sands said.
Donald Trump was elected to office for his first term in November 2016, following eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. Although Trump did not take office until 2017, several students said the election itself marked a turning point in their awareness of political division.
Yori Demery, a sophomore architecture major from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said he noticed changes in his community following the election and felt racial division among kids in his adolescence.
“I think racism was at more of a forefront where I lived after 2016… past that time period, people stood to their sides, there was a division,” Demery said.
Despite the intensified racial tensions, students said they connected their nostalgia for the era to pop culture. In 2016, several widely celebrated albums released by popular Black artists like Rihanna, Frank Ocean, Young Thug, Drake and Solange remain influential in contemporary music discussions.
“Ten years ago, what I remember most is pop culture,” Sands said. “I was eight years old, but getting specifically into Beyonce’s Lemonade… I saw beauty in being Black at that age.”
Tyarr Ruth, a junior fashion design major from Brooklyn, New York, said renewed interest in 2016 aesthetics reflects how the cyclical nature of fashion is driven by nostalgia.
“When the Y2k thing was a trend, we were always dressing up like that for a little bit. I think it’s just 2016’s turn for people to have a chance to dive into that aesthetic,” Ruth said.
At the same time, many students associate 2016 with early adolescence. They described it as a period before the onset of increased academic stress and financial responsibilities. Demery said he was in fourth grade at the time.
“It was my first time having freedom at that age,” Demery said.
For Ruth, who was finishing up fifth grade at the time, the year represented a period of unstructured time and social ease.
“When I was fresh out of fifth grade, it was straight up fun, I could be outside and do different things, but now adulthood and real life hit in a certain way,” Ruth said.
Students’ nostalgia is closely tied to their early experiences with social media. 10 years ago, platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, were becoming popular among young users.
“Younger generations point to social media more than we did. We used it for fun, but our generation uses it consistently now. I catch myself searching things up on TikTok. [For] older generations, it was Google,” Ruth said. “Social media limited our amount of research. They reference libraries and books in old shows, but now we can just go on our phone.”
Nere Aye, a developmental psychology professor at Howard University, said nostalgia often emphasizes positive memories while minimizing conflict or stress from the same period.
“We tend to remember the good… We hold onto those times we think were peaceful. We even interpret those times to be more peaceful, because that is how memory works,” Ayu said.
Despite the nostalgia surrounding 2016, the year was marked by several highly publicized events that heightened national tensions. In June 2016, a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando left 49 people dead, remaining the deadliest attack on the LGBTQ community to date. The year also included attention towards police killings of unarmed Black men, Philando Castile in Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Louisiana, which sparked protests across the country.
Somehow, only the good times are in the memories people post on social media, Ayu suggested. She added that social media plays a significant role in reinforcing those selective memories.
“It’s our responsibility to decipher truth and fiction… If you keep hearing the same thing, it keeps popping up on your timeline; it’s going to get ingrained into your head. It doesn’t mean you fact-checked that information,” Ayu said.
Ayu said nostalgia also extends to music and pop culture, which many students associate with childhood rather than with the political and social climate of the time.
“Music is very different from ten years ago,” Ayu said. “I think nostalgia for [the] music of that time is causing people to reminisce. Some would say that was the last time we had really great R&B compared to what we have now.”
For many Howard students, the renewed focus on 2016 reflects a broader transition into adulthood. Students said the year represents a time before academic pressure, financial responsibilities and career planning became central parts of their lives.
“I think a lot of people our age want to go back to being innocent, and we’re all realising we lost our innocence. A time when being alive was fun, and we’re now seeing the stresses of being an adult, and it’s coming fast,” Demery said.
Copy edited by D’Nyah Jefferson – Philmore
