POV: 2026 is the new 2016… and the marketing industry is late to the trend (again)

Somewhere between Triangle bikinis quietly reappearing in wardrobes and dusty ABH palettes resurfacing on vanities, the internet made a collective decision: we’re going back. Not because 2016 was perfect, but because it felt lighter. Less layered. Less… in literal shambles. With 2026 marking a clean ten-year loop, people aren’t just reminiscing, they’re reclaiming. 

What we’re seeing across social platforms isn’t accidental nostalgia; it’s a deliberate return to a time that felt simpler, funnier, and culturally less exhausting. And the internet is leading the charge. ​​What’s happening now isn’t nostalgia as escapism. It’s nostalgia as reclamation. For marketers, it’s a shift in what audiences are responding to. And right now, the industry is late to it.

These aren’t coincidences. They’re signals. Get with the program, honey!

The Devil Works Fast, but The Internet Works Faster

This revival isn’t subtle. Meme pages aren’t gently referencing 2016; they’re archiving it. They’re resurfacing the Mannequin Challenge, Vine-era humour (RIP), and early viral moments, not because they’re “throwbacks,” but because they represent a version of virality that wasn’t engineered. Moments like the Chewbacca mask video featuring Candace Payne didn’t go viral because of strategy; they went viral because they were joyful, unpolished, and human.

Today’s internet is saturated with intention, and it is oversaturated with content that feels designed to perform. Every post has a purpose, every clip has a hook, every moment is measured against performance, and guess what? Audiences can tell. 

That’s why these 2016 resurfaced moments land. They remind people of a time when the internet felt communal instead of transactional. That era worked because it felt unfiltered and unbothered. No brand decks. No forced messaging. Just moments that travelled because people wanted to share them. In an era where everything online feels hyper-produced, revisiting moments that existed before optimization feels like relief, and nostalgia isn’t passive here, it’s participatory.

Marketing hasn’t caught up because it’s still trying to recreate virality through control. The culture right now is rewarding the opposite.

Celebrities Are Repositioning Faster Than Brands (Embarazzing)

Artists associated with the 2016 era understand this instinctively. Instead of distancing themselves from that moment, they’re using it as cultural leverage. Pia Mia, the ‘Do it Again’ star is a clear example. Her reappearance online isn’t framed as a comeback; it’s framed as a continuation. Pia’s rise during the mid-2010s wasn’t just about charting songs, it was about being omnipresent in culture: fashion, nightlife, social media, and celebrity adjacency. She’s leaning into the era people remember her from because she understands that relevance today isn’t about pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s about contextualising it, and she’s involving her audience in her rebrand on her TikTok platform (brands, take notes).

The same logic applies to Major Lazer, whose recent TikTok presence acknowledges generational shifts head-on. Their posts don’t assume recognition; they play with the idea that some audiences might not know who they are, while subtly reminding everyone that their sound once defined an era. That self-awareness is exactly why it works. It respects the audience’s intelligence and the internet’s memory.

These aren’t comeback strategies built on denial. They’re built on acceptance.

Brands, on the other hand, are still terrified of looking “dated” or even “unsafe.” The result is content that’s… well, untimely and safe (you idiot).

Why the Industry Keeps Getting This Wrong

The reason 2026 is becoming the new 2016 has less to do with trends and more to do with fatigue. Audiences are exhausted by content that feels optimised, branded, and emotionally distant. They’re gravitating toward moments that feel messy, communal, and sincere. Marketing loves to reference the past visually, but it rarely understands it emotionally. What people miss about that era isn’t the aesthetic, it’s the lack of overthinking.

2016-era content worked because it wasn’t trying to justify itself. It didn’t explain the joke. It didn’t optimise the hook. It didn’t apologise for being loud, messy, or unserious. Today’s advertising culture is obsessed with being correct, polished, and controlled; and that’s exactly why it’s being ignored.

Audiences don’t want perfection right now. They want personality.

What Brands Should Actually Be Doing

The opportunity here isn’t to recreate 2016. It’s to adopt the behaviours that made that era resonate:

Loosen the grip on control

Content that feels overly approved, over-scripted, or sanitised doesn’t travel anymore because audiences can smell overproduced instantly. When every post has been filtered through ten layers of sign-off, it loses the spontaneity and humanity that make people want to engage, share, or care in the first place.

Lean into humour and chaos

Not everything needs to convert, optimise, or ladder up to a KPI within the first three seconds to be effective. Some content exists to build familiarity, personality, and cultural presence, and right now, humour and a little chaos are doing more for brand memorability than perfectly packaged messaging ever could. Shoutout Spinney’s UAE (@spinneysuae) on TikTok!

Let creators lead the tone

Brands don’t need to explain the joke, contextualise the joke, or brand the joke to death (honestly… please stop). They need to back the people who already understand it. The strongest work happens when brands fund creativity instead of narrating it, and trust creators to speak in a language audiences actually recognise.

Accept that not every audience moment is “on brand” 

That’s the point. If everything looks and sounds safe, nothing stands out.

This isn’t about abandoning strategy. It’s about understanding that attention today is earned through emotional and cultural familiarity, not polish.

The Industry Can Join In or Be Left Behind

2026 becoming the new 2016 isn’t a cute internet moment, it’s a directional shift. Audiences are gravitating toward content that feels less manufactured and more human, and they’re doing it loudly. Creators and artists have already adjusted. Meme culture has already moved. Marketing is the one dragging its feet.

The resurfacing memes, the returning artists, the cultural callbacks, they all point to the same truth: people miss when the internet felt like a place, not a performance. Brands that keep defaulting to safety will blend into the background. The ones willing to tap into this cultural mood—imperfectly, confidently, and without over-explaining—will win attention.

This isn’t regression.

It's a cultural recalibration.

The internet isn’t asking for better ads, It’s asking for fewer rules. And right now, the industry needs to listen.