Esther McCarthy: 'Nostalgia is a nice break from dystopia'
Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn
Have you seen the 2016 trend that’s going around the place? It’s mainly sepia-toned pictures of people rocking carved eyebrows. At first, I was confused — an emotion I’m experiencing more and more on social media, like someone’s benign but slightly baffled grandmother. (I’m still afraid to say the numbers six and seven in sequence, as it sets off either A) a monotone, drawn-out repetition accompanied by the kids looking like they’re doing a really rubbish juggle, or perhaps weighing apples, or B) groans and stern directives never to utter those numbers again.)
But anyway, apparently, 2026 is the new 2016. Which does explain why my feed has people resharing decade-old photos. I can practically smell the nostalgia coming out of the screen.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I totally get it. It makes sense to hark back to a simpler time — especially since the present is feeling distinctly dystopian.
Yes, here is the proof that we were younger, funner, freer, unburdened by the global shitshow that 2026 has kicked us off with.
We are watching America turning on itself like a vicious, senile snake that is determined to take the rest of us down with it; toxic masculinity infiltrating our young men’s minds through the guise of fitness influencers; AI sucking the very humanity out of us, one nudifying app at a time.
We are witness to unjust wars, avoidable famine, global warming, far-right fascism, and perhaps most heinous, the quiet knowledge that Snapchat dog ears will outlive us all.
Why not hark back to a version of ourselves that didn’t have to survive a global pandemic? In 2016, my eldest son, who has just slapped L plates on the car and now has to bend so I can plant a kiss on top of his head, was seven. His brothers were four and one. I’m looking at the little videos I took of them in 2016, the older two running around in their Spiderman and Power Ranger costumes, the little fella slopping porridge into his gob in his high chair. I want to reach into the phone and squeeze them and freeze them and demand they stay like this forever. I tear up looking at a snap of the three of them entwined, cuddling on the couch. It was a great year.
Or was it? Do I only think it was because that’s the whole point of nostalgia? I probably didn’t take a video of me trying to get the stale milky smell out of the high chair two days later because I was too tired to clean it that day.
Or of waking up five times a night when he was teething. Or the frantic feeling of failure because I knew I had to go back to work, but we didn’t have any proper childcare organised after the au pair had spent her first two days crying in her room because she was homesick. And possibly because my eyebrows scared her.
And I reckon there’s nothing wrong with a soft-focus reminder of a world that felt lighter.
I read a statistic from TikTok that says searches for “2016” are up 452%. Some 56m videos now wear a hazy filter inspired by the year.
And just in case you thought it was just burnt out ould mas who wanted to recollect their eyebrow game, don’t worry, the celebrities are in on it too, like Selena Gomez, John Legend, and Reese Witherspoon — I must say, I prefer the normal people scrolling back through their camera rolls like digital archaeologists.
Seeing the lady who clips the dog’s nails at a full moon party in Thailand, or the girl I met on my J1 with her newborn baby gives me the feels more than Kylie Jenner sharing photos from her King Kylie era.
I like that, in 2016, it felt like social media was still a bit messy. Those bad angles survived, and photos were posted without a thesis. I don’t think anyone talked about “content”, either.
While I won’t be posting any photos online, I do like that the 2016 trend is reminding me that it’s OK to press rewind sometimes, to look back and remember and celebrate and give thanks for the good times.
We’re so lucky in so many ways. We’re still here, right? And the world might be a bit bats right now, but we will hold tough, we’ll mind ourselves and our babies, and focus on the present, and do the things now that will help make the future brighter.
And shur, listen, this trend too shall pass. They always do. Soon we’ll be nostalgic for 2020 sourdough. Or 2022 matching pjs. And in 2036, I’ll probably be looking at those photos of the teenager grinning with his L plates and get that same kick in the gut, a wish for time to stand still, for me to be able to reach back through the years and tell him and myself: ‘It’ll be OK’.
I might even treat myself to an eyebrow appointment this week; no matter what year it is, there’s no need to be looking like Bert from Sesame Street.
