2016 Was the Best Year and I Will Die on this Hill: Gen Z Nostalgia, Meme Culture, and Emotional Memory

 

Elizabeth Walker

Strategic Communications, Elon University

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements in an undergraduate senior capstone course in communications

Abstract

This study examines the TikTok meme trend centered on the phrase “2016 was the best year” to analyze how Gen Z expresses nostalgia, emotional memory, and generational identity through digital culture. Using a qualitative content analysis of 100 videos tagged with nostalgic references to 2016, the research identifies recurring emotional tones, cultural touchpoints, and generational boundary markers. Findings show that users frame 2016 as a cultural peak through sentimental longing, humorous exaggeration, and territorial claims of insider knowledge. Viral challenges, mobile games, and platforms such as Pokémon Go, the Mannequin Challenge, and Musical.ly functioned as shared cultural artifacts that reinforced collective memory. The analysis also reveals that nostalgia for 2016 extends beyond pop culture, intersecting with politics, conspiracy theories, and disappointment with the present. Overall, this study demonstrates that memes operate as cultural heritage practices, preserving and reshaping collective identity while offering insight into how Gen Z negotiates belonging and meaning in digital spaces.

Keywords: Gen Z; nostalgia; TikTok; meme culture; collective memory
Email: ewalker30@elon.edu

I. Introduction

Memes are more than just humorous images or short clips that spread on social media — they are cultural artifacts that shape public perception, identity, and community. On TikTok and other platforms, Gen Z users often say, “2016 was the best year.” This phrase tends to surface in moments of nostalgia, usually in videos or alongside nostalgic music. It has become a digital mantra for this generation. What began as a casual expression of longing has grown into a broader meme trend that encapsulates how Gen Z performs and shares nostalgia online. As the YouTube series Lessons (2025) explains, “many are describing 2016 as the best year ever,” with some even romanticizing it as “the last good one.”

This nostalgia has moved beyond TikTok edits and comment sections and has become part of a larger cultural conversation. Mainstream outlets – particularly popular press coverage – have noted the resurgence of mid-2010s aesthetics, music, and celebrity culture, framing 2016 as a kind of cultural “golden era” that continues to resonate with younger audiences (Yang, 2026; Staples, 2026). At the same time, meme-tracking sites have documented how phrases like “2016 was the best year” and the newer “2026 is the new 2016” circulate across platforms, showing how users keep remixing the year as a symbol rather than treating it as a literal moment in time (Hamilton, 2026). Together, these examples show that 2016 nostalgia operates as a broader cultural reference point that Gen Z continues to revisit and reinterpret.

This research seeks to show that nostalgic TikTok memes about 2016 function as cultural artifacts that construct generational identity and collective memory. Internet memes are dynamic cultural artifacts that circulate through digital platforms and allow users to express and shape collective identities (Gal et al., 2016). They reflect both technology and social dynamics, showing that the platforms and their users together co-produce their meaning and popularity.

To situate this trend within existing scholarship, media-induced nostalgia operates as a form of entertainment through which audiences engage with memories of the past to experience comfort, belonging, or emotional resonance. Wulf (2018) distinguished between mediated nostalgia, when individuals re-experience media tied to their own memories, and historical media nostalgia, when individuals connect emotionally to media from eras they did not live through.

Joshipura (2025) further argues that memes are not just digital jokes but cultural practices that allow communities to preserve, reinterpret, and transmit shared ideas. Meme-making operates as a kind of heritage curation: collective memory is continually remixed and reshaped as language, humor, and context evolve, even when familiar templates stay the same.

Understanding this trend matters because it reflects more than just people missing old songs, apps, or trends. When Gen Z users say “2016 was the best year,” or reference emerging variations such as “2026 is the new 2016,” they’re also talking about how they remember their formative years, how they define their generation, and how they make sense of a present that often feels heavier or more uncertain. The 2016 meme has become a way to express emotional memory and belonging, and it shows how digital spaces help people work through feelings about identity, change, and cultural shifts. Looking closely at this trend helps reveal how something that seems lighthearted or nostalgic on the surface can actually carry deeper meaning about how younger audiences understand themselves and their world.

This research investigated how different nostalgic meme trends — particularly those that idealize the year 2016 — circulate across social media platforms and what they reveal about Gen Z’s relationships with nostalgia, identity, and digital culture.

II. Literature Review

The term “meme,” coined by Richard Dawkins, refers to “small cultural units of transmission that flow from person to person by copying or imitation” (as cited in Gal et al., 2016). Over time, this definition has evolved with the rise of social media and mass communication. The following literature review examines prior research on how memes reflect identity and collective memory. It explores how memes have moved beyond humor, carrying symbolic meaning that represents specific cultural themes and social phenomena.

Internet memes often rely on recognizable visual templates that users can collectively identify with, but they are continually remixed by meme-makers to express new meanings. Memes function as “performative acts” that help construct collective identity through shared format and cultural references, demonstrating how visual repetition and remixing contribute to cultural memory (Gal et al., 2016). For example, the memes shown in Figures 1 and 2 each display a familiar “brainwave enlightenment” image sequence, where each panel represents increasing levels of perceived sophistication. Although the visuals remain consistent, the text varies depending on the meme-maker’s intent. The humor found in memes often transcends cultures. For instance, some versions discuss accomplishing tasks in Slavic culture or apologizing in Indian culture, yet the recognizable structure of the meme allows for global participation in a shared visual language (Joshipura, 2025). Regardless of language or location, viewers can quickly recognize a meme’s structure and understand its meaning, even as the text changes. Joshipura (2025) further suggests that memes function as dynamic cultural artifacts, where collective memory is preserved through repetition and reshaped through personalization.

At first glance, memes look like simple, funny images or videos, but they often touch on key experiences that kickstart social conversations. Giorgi (2022) emphasizes that younger generations are not just consumers of culture but active participants who reinterpret and create it. Gal (2016) also analyzed the viral “It Gets Better” video campaign responding to suicides among gay teens. They describe such memes as “performative acts” used both for persuasion and for constructing collective identity and norms. This illustrates how memes, humorous or not, can provide a platform for marginalized communities to express identity and solidarity.

Building on the idea that memes foster community, they can also serve as tools of division. The viral “OK Boomer” trend, for example, mocked older cohorts or peers seen as out of touch (Giorgi, 2025). Over time, “boomer” shifted from meaning someone born in a specific era to describing someone who behaves like an older person resistant to change, such as struggling to use technology. These patterns suggest that meme-making functions as a social language through which digital users define their values, frustrations, and sense of belonging.

Nostalgia, the emotional longing for the past, can strengthen well-being and reinforce personal or collective identity. In today’s digital age, individuals are constantly exposed to media that evokes nostalgia. As Wulf (2018) notes, seeing a movie clip or song from childhood can remind someone of their surroundings and emotions from that time. Social media platforms have increasingly become spaces where users express nostalgia and share collective memories.

This nostalgia also extends to consumer behavior. George et al. (2025, p. 8) found that “72% of Gen Z consumers express a preference for brands that integrate nostalgic brand elements.” Additionally, companies found more engagement when they posted nostalgic content on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. This goes to show that even in a fast-paced digital world, people are drawn to nostalgia for its emotional connection and familiarity.

Although memes can circulate widely across several different platforms, they still function as “badges of group belonging,” signaling who is “in” and who is “out” of certain communities. As seen with the “OK Boomer” trend (Giorgi, 2025), memes can shape group dynamics by building unity and creating a sense of belonging but can also be used to exclude or stereotype.

Beyond humor, memes can also be used as cultural tools that document new forms of expression. Oswald et al. (2023, p.13) argue that “collecting and contextualizing image digital media in collaboration with young people is a viable and inclusionary approach for memory institutions to document new expressions of culture and everyday life.” This suggests that meme-making is not only a socially expressive form of entertainment but also a form of cultural contribution and civic engagement.

Memes can also serve as ways for individuals and communities to share conspiracies and spread misinformation. Godwin et al. (2025) describe how memes stabilize conspiracy culture by allowing like-minded groups to share symbolic language that confirms and validates their own beliefs. For instance, in Figure 3, a meme of “Leftists Be Like” is shown comparing “Voter I.D.” and “Mandatory Vaccine I.D.” with a series of images from Drake’s music video “Hotline Bling.” The first image shows him turning away in disgust to “Voter I.D.” and the second showing him looking pleased to “Mandatory Vaccine I.D.” The study indicates that internet memes are a way for conspiracy communities and others to have an essential commonality, in which they share through symbolic language, such as memes (Godwin et al., 2025).

Similarly, Seiffert-Brockman et al. (2017) showed how political memes evolve as they circulate and are often reinterpreted to fit different agendas. They argue that memes change “according to some set of internal political schema, resulting in an active battle over the preferred meaning.” Over time, a meme’s new version may gain more attention than the original. This reflects how digital users continually reshape meaning in a participatory media environment.

Across these studies, researchers highlight memes as cultural artifacts that mix humor, identity, nostalgia, and shared experiences. The existing research demonstrates the role that memes have in forming collective identity, defining generational boundaries, and even spreading political or conspiratorial narratives.

Research questions

While previous studies have explored the significance of memes as cultural artifacts and tools for communities to collaborate and create shared identities, there is still a gap in understanding how memes function as emotional and generational markers in digital spaces. Addressing this gap is significant because examining how nostalgia is expressed and circulated through memes can reveal how digital communities shape emotional memory and cultural belonging. These insights extend the literature on collective memory and identity formation, illuminating the broader role of media in constructing generational identity and shared values.

Building on these themes, the study focused on two key questions that explore how nostalgic memes express emotional connections and generational identity on TikTok:

  1. How does the TikTok trend touting “2016 was the best year” express emotional connections to the past among users who appear to identify with Gen Z experiences?
  2. In what ways do users remix and reinterpret meme templates to express generational identity?

III. Methods

This study was conducted through a qualitative content analysis of TikTok videos to examine how nostalgic meme trends — specifically those centered around the phrase “2016 was the best year” — reflect Gen Z’s emotional relationships and remembering of the past. Content analysis is well-suited for identifying recurring themes, formats, music, and emotional tones in user-generated media, particularly on platform-specific cultures, like TikTok.

Data were collected using TikTok’s search function to identify videos tagged with or containing the phrase “2016 was the best year” and related nostalgic phrases (e.g., “bring back 2016,” “2016 core,” “2016 vibes”). The first 100 publicly available videos appearing in the results were selected for the analysis. All videos were collected on the same day to ensure consistency and reduce temporal bias. Because the researcher’s account had not been active since January 2025, algorithmic personalization was minimized, supporting the credibility of the sample as a reflection of trending content rather than individualized recommendations.

The 100 videos were examined in their entirety for both visual and textual elements, including meme templates, audio choices, caption styles, and engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares. The analysis focused on recurring patterns in how nostalgia was expressed, how meme formats were remixed, and how users signaled generational belonging. Each video was analyzed holistically, with attention to how individual elements — such as on-screen text, captions, audio choices, editing styles, and visual cues — worked together to produce meaning. Textual elements were transcribed when necessary to support close reading. This process was informed by Stuart Hall’s (1980) encoding/decoding framework, which conceptualizes media communication as a circuit of linked but distinct moments – including both production, circulation, and consumption – through which creators encode meaning and audiences actively decode or reinterpret it. In this study, encoding was examined through creators’ stylistic and narrative choices, while decoding was explored through audience responses such as comments, shared languages, and remix practices. While the primary approach was qualitative, descriptive observations of engagement (e.g., like counts, comment themes) were incorporated to contextualize the reach and resonance of specific meme formats — not as statistical evidence, but as interpretive context.

Each video was analyzed thematically, with attention to categories such as emotional tone (e.g., sentimental, humorous, ironic, territorial), type of nostalgia (e.g., personal memory, pop culture, aesthetic, or historical), and meme structure (e.g., template reuse, remixing, duet-stitch, slideshow edits). Generational signals (e.g., references to “Gen Z core,” middle/high school experiences, insider phrases such as “you had to be there”) and notable comments were also marked to capture audience interpretation.

This approach provided insight into how digital nostalgia is expressed and shared within TikTok communities that appear to reflect Gen Z experiences, while acknowledging that findings represent cultural patterns in the sample rather than the beliefs or behaviors of the entire generation.

IV. Results & Discussion

Across the 100 TikToks analyzed, four major patterns emerged in how creators expressed nostalgia for 2016 and how audiences responded to it. These patterns reflect not only what users encoded into their videos — through audio choices, captions, filters, and references — but also how viewers decoded these cues in the comments, often reinforcing shared collective memories, insider knowledge, or broader cultural narratives. Together, these memes reveal how “2016 was the best year” meme operates as both a nostalgic expression and a form of generational meme-making.

Emotional Tone and Nostalgic Resonance

One of the strongest patterns involved the emotional tone creators used to frame 2016 as a cultural peak. The qualitative content analysis of 100 TikTok videos referencing the phrase “2016 was the best year” revealed three dominant emotional tones: sentimental/longing, humorous/ironic, and passionate/territorial. These tones were expressed through captions, audio selections, visual formats, and comment threads, collectively shaping how users framed 2016 as a cultural peak.

A strong sentimental tone appeared in formats that paired nostalgic text with soft visuals like sunsets, vibrant skies, or the Symphony Dolphin meme – a collage of cheerful dolphin images juxtaposed with serious captions (Figure 15). These videos implied that even the “worst” day in 2016 appeared better than the present. This exaggeration illustrates how nostalgia idealizes the past, reflecting Gal’s (2016) observation that consistent visuals can be remixed to convey new meanings, thereby reinforcing cultural memory through repetition and variation.

This longing was reinforced through captions such as “in 3 months 2016 will be 10 years ago” (Figure 4), “you wake up and it’s 2016 again” (Figure 5), and “oh to be a teen again” (Figure 6). Comment sections amplified the sentiment: “being 16 in 2016 was the best year of my life, still with I could go back” (Figure 7), “let’s build a time machine” (Figure 8), “miss these days” (Figure 9), and “nostalgia hitting harder than depression right now” (Figure 10).

Music further intensified this emotional resonance. Slowed or reverb edits of “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd and “White Iverson” by Post Malone heightened the sense of longing. Pitchfork’s coverage of “Black Beatles” highlighted the track’s “hypnotic” rise and cultural impact during the Mannequin Challenge era, underscoring the song’s drifting, slow-motion feel in collective memory (Lozano, 2016). Similarly, Pitchfork’s review of Post Malone’s Stoney described “White Iverson” as built around a “woozy,” emotionally blurred sound that contributes to its melancholic tone (Nast, n.d.). Even the use of Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédie No. 1,” which Classic FM characterizes as “dream-like and sparse” with a calming emotional effect, guided viewers toward feelings of nostalgia, wistfulness, and longing (“Erik Satie: Gymnopédie,” 2012).

Other videos employed humor or irony to recall 2016. In Figure 11, a creator revived the classic “boi” pose with the caption “Shi mfs did in 2016 right before frying your shi.” Although the audio was a current trending TikTok sound, the caption directed viewers back to the original “boi” meme era. Comments responded with variations of SpongeBob “boi” memes (Figure 12), demonstrating how humor functions as a nostalgic trigger.

Irony also appeared in exaggerated devotion to 2016. One video (Figure 13) declared, “people love 2016 more than they love their family,” dramatizing loyalty to the year. One TikTok comment even said, “I would literally sacrifice one of my siblings to go back” (Figure 14). Another example used CapCut — a free video editing app developed by ByteDance, the company behind TikTok (CapCut, 2025) —  with the caption: “POV: Me showing my kids the song that carried 2016,” featuring “Bad and Boujee” by Migos (Figure 18). The retro TV filter positioned the song as a cultural artifact, with the humor relying on insider knowledge of 2016’s pop culture. This kind of ironic framing parallels the “OK Boomer” meme trend described by Giorgi (2025), where humor and exaggeration were used to mark generational boundaries. Similar to the “OK Boomer” meme, which mocked older cohorts for being out of touch, the “Bad and Boujee” meme signals insider status: only those who spent their formative adolescence in this period would understand its significance. These examples highlight how humor and irony are more than entertainment. They function as tools for reinforcing generational identity and collective memory.

A more territorial emotional tone also appeared, with creators asserting ownership over 2016’s cultural significance. One meme (Figure 16) insisted, “Half of y’all don’t even remember 2016,” challenging viewers’ authenticity. Another video argued that “2016 was the best year no matter the age” (17), suggesting that the year transcended generational boundaries. Several posts emphasized personal experience as a form of cultural capital, such as “my biggest flex is I was 21 living in LA in 2016” (19), “I was a senior in high school in 2016” (20), and “prove you was a kid in 2016” (21). This sense of ownership builds directly on the insider/outsider dynamics described in the previous section: claiming proximity to 2016 becomes a way of asserting authenticity and distinguishing “real” members of the generation from those who only participate in the meme. These territorial tones reflect Giorgi’s (2022) argument that memes act as generational boundary markers, reinforcing who belongs and who does not.

Shared Cultural Touchpoints and Collective Memory

Beyond emotional tone, users expressed nostalgia for 2016 through recurring cultural references such as the Mannequin Challenge, Pokémon Go, and Musical.ly. These references — ranging from viral challenges to mobile games and social media platforms — operated as “badges of belonging” that signaled insider knowledge and community identity. Together, they formed a collective memory of what it felt like to experience formative years during 2016, reinforcing the idea that the year was defined by a unique blend of digital participation, pop culture, and everyday trends.

Viral challenges were among the most frequently referenced cultural markers. From classrooms to celebrity feeds, viral challenges like the Mannequin Challenge, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and Water Bottle Flip became collective activities that blended play, performance, advocacy, and social connection. The Mannequin Challenge, one of the most iconic trends of 2016, involved participants remaining completely motionless, like mannequins, for about a minute as the camera moved through the scene (Davis, 2016). This challenge was accompanied by the song “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd. Many of the TikToks analyzed used the song as audio — sometimes slowed and reverbed, sometimes sped up. Even when the audio wasn’t directly included, it was often mentioned as part of why “2016 was the best year.” The song itself became inseparable from the challenge, and TikToks in 2025 still use it as shorthand for 2016. This finding illustrates Research Question1, showing how nostalgic meme trends express emotional connections to the past through shared cultural references.

Similar to the Mannequin Challenge, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which started in 2014, was a viral social media campaign where people dumped buckets of ice water on their heads, filmed it, donated to ALS research, and nominated others to participate (Christiansen, 2014). This event brought together celebrities, politicians, and everyday users, circulating widely across the internet. Even Donald Trump, before his presidency, participated. The challenge illustrates how memes blur entertainment, activism, and politics, creating a shared cultural moment that people still reference as unifying

A smaller, but still recognizable and ironic trend, such as the Water Bottle Flip, also contributed to this collective memory. TikToks analyzed in this study included multiple clips of bottle flips, recalling the collective obsession with landing bottles upright on their caps (Russell, 2016). Comment sections often referenced doing the challenge in classrooms or with friends, highlighting how even small, playful acts became part of the collective memory of 2016.

In 2016, mobile games and digital platforms became cultural touchpoints that turned daily activities into shared experiences, showing how online trends structured real‑world social interaction. Pokémon Go, a free smartphone app that combined gaming with the real world, was one of the most frequently mentioned cultural touchpoints. The game used location tracking to create an augmented reality where players caught and trained Pokémon characters in everyday spaces (Web, 2016). In one TikTok captioned “2016 was peak… the greatest years ever,” a slideshow included Pokémon Go alongside other cultural markers. A viewer commented, “Pokémon Go had the whole city outside” (Figure 22). This captures why the game itself became a nostalgic symbol: it wasn’t just an app, but a rare moment when digital culture fostered real-world connection. Entire communities gathered in parks, malls, and city streets, creating a sense of shared experience that transcended digital boundaries. In hindsight, TikTok users frame Pokémon Go as symbolic of a time when digital culture fostered real-world connections.

In addition to the viral challenges, many creators referenced platforms and objects that defined the everyday culture of 2016. References to Musical.ly and VSCO highlighted the role of early social media aesthetics, where lip-syncing videos and photo filters played a crucial role in Gen Z identity expression online. Hoverboards and fidget spinners, while less culturally weighty, served as playful symbols of the trend-driven climate of that time.

As noted by Joshipura (2025), memes often function as practices of heritage, curating not only significant events but also the ordinary artifacts of everyday life. By alluding to Musical.ly, VSCO, hoverboards, and fidget spinners, TikTok creators showcase an insider’s appreciation for the “2016 vibe.” These references reinforce nostalgia through recognition of shared trends that might otherwise have been forgotten.  This finding also connects to Research Question 2, as insider references to platforms and artifacts function as “badges of belonging” that signal generational identity, reinforcing Giorgi’s (2022) argument about memes as boundary makers.

Generational Identity and Social Commentary

Many of the TikToks analyzed referenced middle school, high school, and “Gen Z core” identity, often comparing the past to the present. The phrase “2016 was the best year” operated as a generational boundary marker, distinguishing insiders — those who experience their formative years during this era — from outsiders who only know it secondhand. These generational cues appeared repeatedly across the analysis, revealing how nostalgia for 2016 is intertwined with identity work and social commentary.

A major part of this identity work involved signaling insider knowledge. Several trends, challenges, and cultural artifacts marked who authentically experienced 2016 and who did not. Many TikToks fell under the “passionate and territorial” emotional category, with creators claiming the year as their own. The implication was clear: if you weren’t in your formative adolescent years in 2016, you didn’t truly live it or understand the culture. For example, one TikTok overlaid “White Iverson” by Post Malone with the caption “POV: it’s summer 2016, you just graduated high school. It’s midnight and you hear this song come on… Life felt different”. The comment section reinforced this insider framing, with one user writing, “more than half of this generation can agree summer 2016 was the best year of our lives” (Figure 23).

Other posts emphasized how sensory experiences shaped generational belonging. In Figure 24, a personal video of sunset driving carried the caption: “no wonder we were happier in 2016, every day was literally a rave,” suggesting that upbeat, high-frequency music shaped the collective mood. A comment added, “new gens will not understand,” reinforcing the idea that those who did not experience their formative years during this era lack the same cultural reference points. Similarly, Figure 25 featured comments like “you just had to be there tbh.” These examples reflect Giorgi’s (2025) description of memes as “badges of group belonging” — symbols that mark authenticity even as they circulate widely across platforms.

Generational boundaries also produced aspirational nostalgia. One TikTok, again using “White Iverson” in slowed reverb, captioned: “POV: you were a teen in 2016” (Figure 26). A younger user commented, “I was ten and wanted to be just like you guys.” This connects to Wulf’s (2018) concept of historical media nostalgia, where individuals emotionally attach to eras they did not personally live through.

The romanization of 2016 creates a cultural script that even younger audiences adopt. By dividing the meme into those who understand the year versus those who don’t, TikTok users generate a longing for an era that becomes aspirational nostalgia — something that younger generations wish they had experienced firsthand.

At the same time, not all posts emphasized exclusivity. Some framed 2016 as universally significant, suggesting that nostalgia for the year transcends generational boundaries. Comments like “2016 was genuinely one of the best years for everybody” (Figure 27) reveal how users negotiate between individual memory and collective experience. This tension — between territorial claims of authenticity and broader collective memory — illustrates how memes simultaneously reinforce exclusivity and invite shared participation.

Politics, Conspiracy, and Disappointment with the present

References to Obama nostalgia, the Trump election, COVID comparisons, and conspiracy theories reveal that the “2016 was the best year” meme functions not only as a cultural memory but also as political commentary. Across the analysis, creators used nostalgia to express dissatisfaction with the present, framing 2016 as a symbolic “before” moment — before political division, before the pandemic, and before broader cultural shifts that many users perceive as negative.

Many TikToks signaled that 2016 felt like a “better” year because Barack Obama was president. Comments such as “8 years of Obama we were thriving” (Figure 28) and “I miss Obama” (Figure 29) framed his presidency as part of the collective memory of stability and optimism. Other TikToks explicitly tied this nostalgia to the transition of power. One video (Figure 30) claimed that “people don’t even remember Trump being elected that year,” while another (Figure 31) featured a creator passionately stating “2016 was the last year before Trump, and that’s why people are nostalgic.” Comments echoed this sentiment: “It was the final year without Trump. That’s what we miss.” Taken together, these examples show that nostalgia for 2016 is not only about memes, music, and pop culture, but also about political leadership. Obama becomes shorthand for a more hopeful era, while the election of Trump marks a turning point that users frame as the beginning of a more divisive period. In this way, the meme operates as a marker of political change, with 2016 remembered as the “last good year” before a shift in national mood.

Nostalgia also appeared in comparisons between 2016 and the COVID-19 pandemic years. Some TikToks contrasted the freedom and social connection associated with 2016 against the isolation and uncertainty of 2020. Comments like “life was good until 2020” (Figure 32) or “COVID destroyed it all” (Figure 33) show how users use the meme to mark 2016 as a symbolic “before” moment — before lockdowns, fear, and disruption. These comparisons reveal how nostalgia becomes a coping mechanism for disappointment with the present.

Beyond straightforward nostalgia, some creators linked 2016 to conspiracy theories. For example, one TikTok suggested that upbeat, high-frequency music in 2016 contributed to collective happiness, implying that changes in music culture today are tied to rising negativity (Figure 34). This reflects Godwin et al.’s (2025) description of memes as stabilizers of conspiracy culture: symbolic language and shared references allow like-minded groups to validate their beliefs. Seiffert-Brockmann et al. (2017) similarly argue that political memes evolve as they circulate, often being reinterpreted to fit different agendas. In this case, “2016 was the best year” becomes a flexible meme that can signify nostalgia for Obama, critique Trump, lament COVID, or even speculate about music frequencies. Its adaptability underscores how memes serve as participatory political discourses, continually reshaped to reflect dissatisfaction with the present.

V. Conclusion

Memes, as this research shows, function as cultural artifacts that shape public perception, identity, and community. They are more than humorous images or short clips shared online; they carry emotional meaning, signal belonging, and help users make sense of both the past and the present. Throughout this project, it became clear that for many TikTok users, 2016 represents more than just a year — it symbolizes a period defined by cultural touchpoints such as viral challenges, popular apps, and distinctive emotional tones. The content analysis of 100 TikTok videos referencing the phrase “2016 was the best year” demonstrated that nostalgia operates both as a personal memory and a shared cultural experience. It also showed how TikTok enables emotional expression through sound choices, captions, editing tools, and the collective remixing of recognizable meme formats.

The research questions — how nostalgic TikTok trends express emotional connections to the past, how users remix templates to communicate generational identity, and how TikTok’s platform culture shapes the circulation and meaning of nostalgia — were addressed through this analysis. Many Gen Z users expressed strong emotional connections to 2016 by revisiting major viral challenges and moments, popular apps, and trend-driven artifacts that symbolized the era. A large portion of the videos used similar structures, like the 2016 glitter or captions paired with upbeat visuals, while creators leaned on insider language that signaled generational belonging. Many creators also relied on territorial or insider language that signaled generational belonging. This reflects both personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia, as even users who were young during 2016 still express longing for the era because of the cultural narrative built around it online.

Overall, the 2016 nostalgia trend reveals how Gen Z makes meaning, copes emotionally, and constructs identity within digital spaces. While the meme trend highlights shared memories tied to music, aesthetics, and past social dynamics, many TikToks also use nostalgia to comment on the present. References to political shifts, the impact of COVID-19, and broader cultural changes suggest that looking back at 2016 becomes a way for users to reflect on — and sometimes critique — current social realities.

This study helps explain how generational identity forms and why certain eras feel especially significant within online communities. As technology continues to evolve, future research can look at how digital nostalgia develops over time and how platform-specific cultures shape what people remember and why. In the end, the persistence of the “2016 was the best year” meme shows that nostalgia isn’t just about remembering — it’s about how a generation makes sense of itself right now.

A key limitation of this study is its exclusive focus on TikTok. This means that the findings might not fully show how nostalgic memes look or work on other platforms, like Instagram or Reddit. Since memes often depend on shared cultural knowledge, how people interpret each video may vary based on individual experiences or cultural backgrounds. Another limitation is that TikTok trends change rapidly. As a result, the videos analyzed may only reflect a brief moment of this nostalgic meme trend. Finally, the sample includes only 100 videos. While this allows for a detailed content analysis, it does not provide a complete view of all the ways Generation Z expresses nostalgia online.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Professor Laura Lacy for her guidance, feedback, and support throughout the development and execution of this project. Additional thanks go to classmates in COM4970 for their thoughtful insights during peer workshops. The author also acknowledges the creators whose TikTok content made this research possible.

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