Ariana Grande is brunette, Vine is resurging in popularity, Katy Perry is making new music, and 2016 fashion is coming back. Should we be scared? As we get older and as we go through fads faster than ever, there is a need for people wanting to go back in time when everything was “simpler,” and aging wasn’t something that ultimately was a worry. Personally, I do not believe that 2016 coming back is a really bad thing, though there are some concerns I have.
Throughout the years, no matter what decade, there has always been a nostalgia for a different decade, which can be seen through the trend cycles. What once was the 20-year trend cycle has now become more frequent because how we consume has changed. The comeback of the 2016 culture has appeared a lot earlier; I mean, we lived through a global pandemic. As everything goes faster and the earth keeps spinning, this preservation for nostalgia has become a shell of protection and security. This isn’t the first time people have used fashion for this nostalgia.
I only have one major issue: with this 2016 revival, we are bringing back the “Tumblr skinny” with every celebrity and their mother on Ozempic (a weight loss drug). This has become a very prominent issue on the red carpet recently because it’s promoting these unhealthy beauty standards to a very impressionable population. This has caused a ” boy who cried wolf” issue, as people will claim these celebrities are taking Ozempic even if they’ve lost weight without using the weight loss drug. However, the fact that Ozempic is so popular with these Hollywood women is damaging because it projects beauty standards into people’s heads and ultimately causes eating disorders, which brews lifelong health issues. On the other hand, people have gotten too comfortable with talking about women’s bodies, and personally, that is out for 2026 because that ultimately does more harm than good. As we go into the new year and embrace this nostalgia, it’s important not to be too blinded by idealizations of the past.
We are all blinded by nostalgia, no matter what decade or year it is. As time goes on and as we near adulthood, we long for the time when we were carefree kids. With a 2016 revival on the horizon, I find myself feeling excited because every year, life has gotten overall more stressful. I find myself hoping, despite growing up and maturing since then, that this rebrand will help make growing up just slightly easier, knowing that I’ll have the music, fashion, or hopefully even the feeling of pure bliss that characterized my childhood.
Celebrities and trends are aware that people long for the past, so they market it, making it more accessible for the consumer. One of the many examples that hit me was that Ariana Grande dyed her hair back to brunette. Just seeing her as she was in 2016 brought me a wave of nostalgia. Another example is Halsey re-releasing her album, “Badlands,” for its tenth anniversary because hearing those songs again just brought me back to a time when unsupervised internet access felt healing. I felt like that little girl, again, who was reading Wattpad and on Tumblr. However, this longing for the past is not something that is unusual.
As someone who is often baited by nostalgia, I am supportive of this revival of 2016. I imagine I’m like one of those millennials who are still holding onto the 90s. It’s important to note the toxic body standards with this 2016 comeback, but I also feel that even without the revival, Ozempic would still be an issue that manifests itself like any plague, ruining anything it touches. With all this said, I don’t believe that 2016 coming back is a bad thing because people have always felt nostalgia for previous decades and moments in time, so it’s not any different.
