A letter to my 2016 self
According to social media, 2026 is the new 2016.
The trend is everywhere: TikToks with Snapchat dog filters, Instagram carousels with Rio De Janeiro filters, Spotify playlists with “Lush Life” by Zara Larsson. People are posting where they were, what they wore and what songs they had on repeat 10 years ago. Wikipedia already has a page for it.
A decade ago, I was 8 years old and in elementary school. Most of what I “remember” about 2016 are not even memories, but things I’ve seen on the internet: memes, music and aesthetics that circulate like cultural folklore.
And yet, I still feel the pull of nostalgia. So this is a letter to my 2016 self.
Dear 2016 Melita,
You don’t know this yet, but people will one day romanticize this exact year you are living in.
In 2016, the internet feels optional. Going viral is rare. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. If someone really goes viral, they end up on “The Ellen Show.” Teachers play the clip in class. Adults talk about it like it’s proof the internet can still be fun.
In 2026, virality is ordinary.
Every day, someone goes viral. Sometimes it’s a stranger. Sometimes it’s a Stanford student. Sometimes it’s you. A clip hits the algorithm, spikes for 12 hours and disappears before it ever feels real.
In 2016, the internet was a place people visited. In 2026, it’s where they live.
Here at Stanford, the digital world is inseparable from daily life. We use Fizz to voice our opinions instead of having conversations. We scroll Musical.ly’s successor in lecture and watch trends mutate in real time. Everyone is both a consumer and a data point.
And now, it feels like artificial intelligence is taking over every industry.
In 2026, you are studying computer science despite concerns about Claude taking your job. You have required COLLEGE 102 assignments on AI policy while friends joke about pasting that same coursework straight into LLMs. Others talk about “vibe coding” because that’s apparently good enough to build a YC-backed B2B SaaS seed-B demo in a weekend.
What people miss about 2016 isn’t just the music or the memes; it’s that the digital world felt smaller, slower and more human-scaled. Platforms weren’t yet optimized to predict us. Content wasn’t yet tailored to our every impulse. You could still feel where the machine ended and the person began.
So when people say “2026 is the new 2016,” they’re not really talking about the past. They’re reacting to how overwhelming the present feels. Nostalgia becomes a way to imagine a digital world that doesn’t demand so much from us.
But you can’t rewind the internet. You can only learn how to live inside it without letting it hollow you out.
You don’t need a simpler time. You need boundaries, awareness and the ability to choose what actually matters, especially in a world designed to choose for you.
Talk soon,
Your 2026 self.
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