Nostalgia is everywhere on the internet right now.
With doomsayers predicting that AI could bring about the apocalypse, this January marking the highest number of layoffs to kick off a year since 2009, and ongoing political unrest, people are harking back to simpler times.
Rather than looking forward to the year ahead, many people hailed in 2026 by reminiscing about 2016 — posting throwback pictures and declaring that 2026 will be the new 2016, set to songs released around that time, such as Zara Larsson’s “Lush Life.”
Many have thrown it back even further — think pieces and experts have dubbed 2026 the “year of analog.” This trend is less about trying to live like it’s 2016, but more 2006 — or 1996.
The tech-induced nostalgia is shining through in recent Reddit posts that ask: “What is a luxury item from 20 years ago that is basically worthless trash today?”
This question has been posted on Reddit in several threads over the last few months. These threads have amassed thousands of comments in the past few weeks.
Among the items people are discussing are portable GPS devices, digital cameras, iPods, and paying for novelty ringtones.
“I paid $700 for one of those in… 2003?” one Reddit user says of a portable GPS device. “Best purchase ever because I’m directionally challenged and relied on MapQuest (!) printouts on the passenger seat.”
“Ringtones. Oh you want one of your ringtones to be a 5 seconds snippets from Lose yourself. That’ll be 8.50$. People would flex about their ringtones,” another Redditor wrote.
In another post, a Redditor reminisced about USB storage drives.
“I remember in 5th grade, a flash drive was on our required supplies list, and I got one that was 512mb. A teacher told me that was more than I would need for the rest of my life,” they wrote.
The PalmPilot, BlackBerry, plasma TVs, and SD cards have also gotten repeat mentions.
Some of these pieces of tech — namely the digital camera — have been reborn in recent years as status symbols for a generation craving a time that felt more authentic.
Going analog
As part of the push to get offline, many Gen Z and millennials are rejecting new technology by Bricking their phones — blocking certain apps and websites — and leaning into in-person hobbies.
Kathryn Jezer-Morton recently wrote for The Cut that 2026 is all about “friction-maxxing” — a rejection of the numbing convenience that AI and technology bring us, which Jezer-Morton says is distancing us from life itself.
It’s as if consumers are harking back to a time when it felt as though technology was made to work for us, rather than make our lives more complicated.
“After a period of intense euphoria and excitement with regards to AI, we are coming down on the other side of the hill,” Thomas Roulet, a professor of organizational sociology and leadership at the University of Cambridge, told Business Insider.
“The tool is democratised and has become normalised, and people realise it hasn’t made their work easier or less intense — quite the opposite,” he added.
“So it’s normal to find GenZ employees — who will have to go through their entire career using those tools — to be disillusioned,” he said.
When the future of AI is being predicted by some tech execs and experts as a white-collar bloodbath with millions of workers laid off, or that those living without AI glasses could be at a “cognitive disadvantage,” it’s no wonder.
In an uncertain time, one thing that’s sure in 2026: de-digitalizing your life is officially a status symbol.
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