All over social media, people are advocating for the return of 2016 as the new year arrives, since it’s been a decade since we’ve seen iconic trends such as Pokémon Go, skinny jeans, and vibrant makeup. 2016 is seen as a time in our lives that had no problems, where nothing was wrong. And even though this obviously wasn’t the case, we see this year as an outlet to what we’ve been yearning for in modern times: the blissful joy of our childhoods.
Many students at LHS feel nostalgic when thinking about 2016, even though most were not even 10 years old at the time. Why is this? Why do we see that year as one of the best, even though we didn’t even have the ability to match our clothes or even make our own breakfast yet?
Junior Lauren O’Connor feels that 2016 was so nostalgic to many due to the fact that our lives seemed simpler. “There was less technology,” she said. “People are bringing back 2016 to relive a better time and go back to our childhoods.”
Junior Kadence McMillan has similar thoughts, and she agrees that teenagers now are craving the feeling of being a kid again. “Especially now, when we are beginning to enter the ‘real’ world, and we are encountering a lot more stress in our everyday lives. 2016 was a time when we were all still able to be kids and enjoy the little things in life,” said McMillan.
The reason that we’re yearning so much for past times is due to our growth of awareness. We may have been 8 years old in 2016, but life looked incredible when looking back because we were oblivious, oblivious to world events and politics, along with homework, school, and hard classes. But today, many are hyper-aware of what’s going on in our world, the “real” world, as McMillan puts it, and after a decade much has changed. We are so desperate for nostalgia because, honestly, we know too much now and it’s overwhelming at times. Being oblivious kids is in our past, and now our only option is to be aware, to be conscious of our surroundings and their impact on our lives and the lives of others. This is an attribute that’s extremely important for our future, but it can also be really difficult to deal with, when all we hear about is bad news.
Thinking about 2016 is like putting back on the rose-tinted glasses. It’s a source of comfort, a hopeful feeling of what we could bring back, and this is why it’s getting so much support online.
So what do we do about this? From my perspective, it seems to me that we should embrace our eagerness for nostalgia. Bring back old trends, old memories, feel a newfound sense of bliss! After all, there’s nowhere to go but up, right?
