Culture
Gen Z Wants to Go Back to 2016 — But What They're Really Mourning Is an Internet That No Longer Belongs to Them
The '2026 is the new 2016' trend sweeping global social media is not simple nostalgia. It is the first time digital natives have publicly declared that the internet they grew up with has become unrecognizable — flooded by AI slop, stripped of authenticity, and turned from a playground into a marketplace.