What year is it?! According to our feeds, it’s 2016. For the younger set, the appeal is simple: Gen Z were teens ten years ago and are drawn to looser, less polished images — iPhone 6 grain, messy bedrooms, slightly janky filters — from a time before feeds knew more about us than our close friends. For aging Millennials (no shade, hi, it’s me), 2016 marks a different break: a cultural and political inflection point that scrambled what it meant to appear online at all, as feeds lurched from yachts to protests overnight. What’s resurfacing now is an uncanny blend of mischief and melancholy — rose-gold tinted nostalgia, mint green matcha, smudged eyeliner and full beat makeup, yes, but also a question of whether 2016, the year Stranger Things premiered, was when we slipped into the Upside Down.

• DietPrada’s 2016 fashion digest is not fake news
• Good to know the youth can have fun in tough times
• The top shows and films from 2016 were, ironically, retro-inspired
• Remember the mannequin challenge?

2016By @cosmos

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