written by bengisuedotcom for FLYN
(read unlayouted version below)
Every few years, culture announces a return. Itβs called a trend cycle, duh. Even the non fashion-folk get it. This time itβs the mid 2010s. The fonts are back, the filters are back, the silhouettes are back. Instagram looks suspiciously like itself again. According to the internet, weβre reliving a simpler time.
The easiest explanation is economic. It is also the most boring. Recessions always bring nostalgia with them. When the future feels uncertain, culture looks backward for stability. This argument is correct and like I said, kind of boring. Economics alone donβt explain why people are suddenly longing for an era that was visually cheap, emotionally reckless, and, by todayβs standards, often deeply embarrassing.
Whatβs happening isnβt a revival of taste. Itβs a revival of atmosphere.
2016 wasnβt particularly refined, ethical or intentional. It was messy, inconsistent and often incoherent. But it existed at a strange in-between moment: social media was already everywhere, yet it hadnβt learned how to watch itself. Platforms were curated, but not self-conscious. People posted constantly, but rarely strategically. Content circulated without footnotes, disclaimers or a clear sense of consequence.
Looking back, itβs tempting to confuse that lack of polish with innocence. It wasnβt. The appeal lies elsewhere. Around 2016 marked the last phase of the internet before everyone understood what visibility was worth and before that knowledge began to shape everything that followed.
2016 B.A. (BEFORE AWARENESS)
What separated 2016 from now wasnβt necessarily aesthetics. It was awareness.Β
Social media was already curated, but it wasnβt yet self-conscious. People knew they were being seen, but they hadnβt fully internalized what that visibility meant. Posting didnβt feel like a whole content strategy. It felt closer to impulse. You shared because you wanted to, not because you had mapped out how it would land, who it might offend or whether it aligned with a βlong-term narrativeβ of yourself.
Content was often superficial, sometimes stupid, occasionally embarrassing. There were fewer talking videos, less explaining, almost no obligation to contextualize or justify what you put online. Looking back we can realize though: that wasnβt really a failure of depth. It was a difference in function. Social media wasnβt yet expected to educate, correct or perform moral literacy. It was allowed to be kinda dumb. It was allowed to be unfinished.
Cringe thrived in that environment. And cringe, uncomfortable as it is in hindsight, is usually just sincerity that hasnβt been retroactively edited. The reason so much from that era feels hard to look at now isnβt because people lacked taste: itβs because they lacked foresight.
Self-awareness hadnβt caught up to scale yet. And before it did, there was room for inconsistency, contradiction and unpolished content. All things that are much harder to afford once every post starts feeling permanent.
TRIGGER WARNING: NO TRIGGER WARNINGS
Of course, that era wasnβt harmless. Anyone pretending otherwise is either lying or curating their memory.
Tumblr, in particular, was a mess in ways that are hard to look at now. Not just aesthetically, but ethically. It was a place where self-destruction circulated freely, often dressed up as taste. Eating disorder culture wasnβt exactly hidden in dark corners. It was in fact prettyβ¦ casual. Rebloggable. Thinness wasnβt just desired, it was aestheticized, affirmed, repeated until it felt normal. And it did. There were no disclaimers. No protective language. No distance.
That doesnβt make it good. And it doesnβt need to be defended. Iβm not here to moralize.Β
But it does matter that it existed in a space that hadnβt yet learned how to frame harm. What circulated back then wasnβt really ideology or people forcing their views. It was just uncensored exposure. People didnβt share because they wanted to influence. They shared because they were inside it. Because the internet still functioned as a place to spill, not a place to package.
Looking back, itβs easy to flatten that mess into a moral failure. Itβs harder (and more honest) to admit that what made it dangerous is also what made it real. That authenticity we seem to value so much nowadays was arguably more presistent back then. Nothing was buffered. Nothing was explained away. There was no clear line between expression and damage, because the infrastructure to draw that line didnβt exist yet.
Today, that kind of mess would never survive unmediated. It would be reframed, contextualized, flagged or monetized into something more palatable. Safer, maybe. But also less revealing. Less honest about how people actually felt before they learned how to perform being okay.
THE LEARNING CURVE OF BEING AN ATTENTION WHORE
Once everyone learned what the attention that social media brought with it was worth, the shift didnβt happen all at once. It crept in quietly, disguised as opportunity.
At some point, social media stopped feeling like a place and started feeling like a market. Ads multiplied. Then they camouflaged themselves. βThis changed my life.β βYou need this.β βThe only product youβll ever need.β PR hauls blurred into personal taste. Recommendations turned into revenue streams. You canβt always tell what is genuine anymore and that is kind of the point.
More importantly, people started having something to lose.
A following. A reputation. A branddeal. A future collaboration. Once attention became legible as currency, behavior changed. Posting stopped being impulsive and started being strategic. Messiness became a liability. Silence became a tactic. Even authenticity had to be managed. Released in controlled doses, timed carefully so it read as relatable without ever becoming inconvenient.
Perfection followed naturally. Or at least the appearance of it. Flaws were allowed back in only once they were reviewed, or served a purpose and most importantly stripped of risk. Vulnerability today is content. Personality today is branding. Everything is suddenly intentional. Even the things pretending not to be.
This is where the self-awareness mentioned earlier hardens into something else: calculation. Not everyone became an influencer, but everyone learned to think like one. The question was no longer βdo I want to share this?β but βwhat does this do for me?β
And once that question enters the room, the atmosphere changes for good.
R.I.P. 2016 (YOU WOULD HAVE HATED REELS)
Looking back 2016 doesnβt merely feel messy and chaotic. It feels unfinished.Β
Social media at the time resembled a building still under construction: The wiring was visible. The safety rails werenβt fully installed. Some doors led nowhere, others opened too easily. You could get hurt moving through it: but you could also move freely. Nothing had been sealed yet. Nothing had been insured.
That incompleteness is what people mistake for authenticity.
The mess wasnβt a feature. It was a side effect of infrastructure that hadnβt hardened. People didnβt know how to behave because the rules werenβt fully written yet. There was no clear manual for how to present yourself, how much to reveal, how to monetize attention or how to protect your future self from your present one. Exposure came before foresight.
Over time, the building was completed. Platforms stabilized. Monetization models solidified. Social norms calcified. Walls went up. Risk was mitigated. PR agencies caught up. Everything became safer, smoother, more controlled and far less permeable.
What weβre nostalgic for isnβt the danger and it isnβt the harm. Itβs the feeling of standing inside something that hadnβt yet decided what it was. A space where presence mattered more than outcome. Where posting didnβt immediately translate into consequence, leverage or loss.
Once a structure is finished, you canβt live in it the same way. You can decorate it. Rebrand it. Recreate the floor plan. But you canβt return to the moment before the walls set.
And thatβs the part thatβs gone for good.
Thatβs why every attempt to revive everything around 2016 feels slightly wrong (even if Iβm literally doing it right now #blogger). Not embarrassing but a bit uncanny.
The problem isnβt execution. Itβs awareness. You can bring back the fonts, the filters, the fashion. You can recreate the feed with the filters, the references, even the attitude (And hopefully one day: the iconic square format on instagram). But you canβt undo the knowledge that now sits behind every post. We know what attention does. We know what visibility costs. We know how quickly something careless can become permanent (#cancelled).
Performance is no longer optional. Itβs structural.
Even βmessβ has learned how to behave. Authenticity arrives pre-framed. Vulnerability shows up with boundaries. Nothing appears without anticipating how it will be read, archived, monetized or misused. The conditions have changed and pretending otherwise only makes the revival feel hollow.
So maybe we should let sleeping (Givenchy Rottweiler) dogs lie.
And for the record: Iβm not saying 2016 was better. It was just earlier.
And earlier is something you can remember - but never return to.
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