“You just had to be there.” It’s the sentiment dominating social media algorithms of the past few weeks, complete with photo dumps and a violently blue filter. Underscored by The Chainsmokers’ hit song “Closer,” the internet has constructed memorial after memorial post for one unlikely year — 2016.

But those 12 months weren’t all pop music and polaroids. And reducing them to “the good ‘ol days” risks romanticising a world that wasn’t nearly as perfect as we remember it.

In fact, 2016 was filled with a number of major global events. Cultural icons Prince, Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman and David Bowie all passed away within months of each other. The Pulse nightclub massacre made history as the deadliest shooting in United States’ history at the time. The election of President Donald Trump and Brexit rocked international relations. It was a wildly disastrous year. So why, oh why, is everyone suddenly obsessed with it?

There are a number of factors. Gen Z’s age, the progression of technology and our modern political climate have all contributed to 2016’s mass rebrand.

Gen Z includes those born from 1997 to 2012, making us anywhere from 4 to 19 during that year. We weren’t adults yet. Even those of us who legally qualified would have been in our first few years of college. Things seemed simpler because, frankly, they were. There were no taxes to pay, no votes to be cast, no problem our parents couldn’t help us with. The problems of 2016 were faraway threats for our parents to sort through, lost to the haze of our adult memories.

Further still, our world was technologically different in 2016. Not necessarily simpler, but different. There was no generative AI threatening employment, fewer influencers constantly flooded your feed and Twitter was still for celebrities beefing over Taylor Swift. 

This drastically slower media environment created a greater sense of community. The loneliness we’ve come to expect from the post-pandemic era simply didn’t exist in its present form. An astounding one in four Americans reported increased feelings of isolation after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a survey conducted by the American Psychiatric Association. 

In fact, many modern problems had yet to crash the party. Fresh off Barack Obama’s presidency, no one knew about the Robert Mueller hearings,  Trump’s coming impeachments or the Jan. 6 insurrection.

2016 was not a good year. But relative to the current state of, well, everything, it seems good. We would rather go back to our youth than exist with things as they are. 

This nostalgia, in and of itself, is not harmful. Rather, it can have real benefits for our mental health. Remembering the past can strengthen your bonds with other people, serve as a metric for personal growth and even make you more optimistic about the future. When life feels uncertain, our memories give us a path forward.

This trend, therefore, could be genuinely positive. If our generation can remember a less polarized, less lonely, less messy time to be alive, then we can also demand a return to that. 

The problem is that we have idealized the status quo of 2016. The issues we see today didn’t emerge from nowhere. They were always brewing, even eight years ago. When we say we want to return to those times, I’m not sure we actually know what we’re talking about. 

Especially for members of the LGBTQIA+ or immigrant communities, 2016 was filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and pain. Yet, now, we wear rose-colored glasses, imagining a cultural moment that never existed. Or, at least, existed on a much smaller scale.

However, that doesn’t mean we can’t create that moment in our world today. We can support politicians who promote reasonable debate and respectful dialogue. We can demand AI regulation, climate policies and more. We have the power to make that idealized status quo. 

We shouldn’t stop looking at 2016. We just need to look at it in its totality. Our memories don’t have to exist in isolation. Sorrow and fear can mix with hope and joy. By examining the world in its totality, we can understand how society shifted in the years since. And, hopefully, we can begin to reverse some of the damage.

So, post your photos. Remember that the world wasn’t always like this. And, if it helps motivate you to act, listen to “Work” by Rihanna until it tops the charts again.