LIWLIG Perspectives #2
Bring Back 2016. Or just the freedom to reflect
It appears in the feed from time to time: “Bring back 2016.” Like a longing. Like a wink. Like a joke that is not entirely a joke. And it is strange, really. 2016 was not a calm year. It was shaky, polarized, and full of events that still shape the world we live in. Yet people speak about 2016 with a certain lightness in their voices. I don’t think we miss 2016. I think we miss how it felt to be online in that year.
When we say 2016, we mean something else
When people remember 2016, they rarely describe the debates. They describe the culture. Music released without warning. Shows that became shared rituals. Screens that felt like places for curiosity rather than arenas for identity.
Pokémon Go is a surprisingly good example. The digital and the physical blended in a way that felt playful, not calculated. In Sweden there was also a different mood online. Social media felt more like a meeting place than a courtroom. Less positioning in every sentence. More everyday life.
It is easy to call it nostalgia. But that is not the full picture.
2016 was not a particularly good year for me. And the world was anything but calm. Brexit. Donald Trump. Terror attacks in Europe. A refugee crisis that revealed both fear and generosity. Disease outbreaks. A general sense that the ground was shifting. And yet, lighter. Why?
What we miss is the margin. There was a kind of psychological space back then. You could write something without it becoming a manifesto. You could change your mind without someone saving it as evidence. You could disappear for a while without your absence being interpreted. Being online felt like something you did, not something you were.
Somewhere along the way, that changed.
Expression slid into signaling. Presence became performance. Not because anyone ordered it, but because the systems around us began rewarding clarity, speed, and consistency. Sharpen your stance. Build your voice. Take a position. Eventually, even silence began to mean something. Are you with me?
2026: The Internet as an archive, not a conversation
Today the internet rarely forgets. And even more rarely remembers with context. Opinions harden faster than people do. Curiosity feels riskier. Mistakes last longer than intentions. That is why 2016 can feel lighter in hindsight. Not because it was peaceful, but because we were allowed to be unfinished.
This is a bigger question than social media. When we demand fully formed people, we get fully formed conversations. And fully formed conversations bring fear. The fear of saying the wrong thing. Changing your mind. Being misunderstood. Being screenshotted. The fear of being the exact same person in every room, every thread, every day.
If fear becomes the default, we lose something essential. Experimentation. Play. Reconsideration. This is not only an individual cost. It is a cultural one.
I do not believe in going back. I believe in correction. When I look toward 2036, I do not see backwards. I see a different pace and a different shape. Fewer stages. More rooms. Less broadcasting. More conversation.
Places where thoughts can exist without immediately becoming proof, statistics, or permanent receipts. Where people can be in motion without that being read as weakness.
History often moves this way. When something is stretched too far in one direction, a counter-movement follows. The Renaissance was not a rejection of progress. It was a demand that humans catch up with their technology. Leonardo da Vinci did not choose between art and science. He refused the question.
That feels relevant again. Not back to filters and trends, but forward to a more human digital life. One where you do not need an armor to be online. Where curiosity is not punished. Where identity is allowed to move.
So perhaps that is what we mean when we say, “Bring back 2016.” Not that we want the year back. But that we want the space for reflection back.
// Niclas Rahm
