Jessica Maddox, associate professor of entertainment and media studies in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, spoke with CNN about why people in 2026 have so much nostalgia for 2016.
Posting photos from a decade ago hearkens back to “simpler” times of social media feeling more like an actual community, she said.
“We were less online but simultaneously more together in the spaces we were online,” Maddox said.
Additionally, the media ecosystem wasn’t as fragmented.
“I think that is part of the reason why we look back and think it was easier or better, probably just because we weren’t plugged in as much, and we weren’t as online doing as much doomscrolling. We weren’t really engaged in the way we are now,” she said.
While the trend is largely innocent, Maddox did note that there’s some “revisionist history going on.”
Even the response to the trend has been polarizing.
“Nothing can happen on the internet now without it becoming a both-sides issue. Nothing can happen on the internet now that can just ‘be,’” Maddox said. “I think the amount of critique I’ve seen on the trend, to me, is why the trend is happening in the first place.”