2016 nostalgia as temporal refuge

TikTok creators posting unearthed photos, reviving Snapchat filters, flower crowns, Converse. "2026 is the new 2016." The last year before the current political era began, repackaged as innocence. Cartoon-chase formats, old Tom and Jerry scores, slapstick as vocabulary.

The collective reaching backward because the forward is incomprehensible. 2016 was not innocent — it was the year the current fracture began. The nostalgia is for the moment before the awareness, not the moment itself. The cartoon chases are the form this takes: exaggerated motion, no real danger, guaranteed escape. The Saturday morning of civilisation.