For better or for worse, it's 2016 again on the internet
A wave of 2016 nostalgia has swept social platforms, as users and celebrities dig up hyper-filtered throwbacks — VSCO presets, matte lips and winged liner, and Pokemon Go-era moments — and joke that “2026 is the new 2016.”
The trend reads as collective escapism and “rosy retrospection.” For many millennials and older Gen Z, 2016 evokes a simpler-feeling social internet (chronological feeds, friend-first posts, fewer parasocial influencers) and the sunny, saturated aesthetics of that moment.
Creators who remember the era say the internet then felt more playful, as today’s platforms and pressures have changed how people share. But critics note that 2016 also included major crises (Brexit, Pulse, Zika) and warn that romanticizing the past can be tone-deaf.
Overall, the meme functions as both comfort and cultural Rorschach: part sincere nostalgia, part performative trend.
How to ace B2B brand storytelling through thought leadership
B2B brand leaders assert that the sector should stop treating social like a product brochure and lean into human-led storytelling and thought leadership to build trust, topical authority and long-term revenue.
They suggest using classic story arcs that make the customer the hero, amplifying employee and executive advocates, surfacing cultural and industry signals via social listening, publishing zero-click content that delivers the insight in-feed, and partnering with outside thought leaders or complementary creators to expand reach.
It closes with three leader takeaways — lean into empathy marketing, obsess over community conversations, and “roll up your sleeves” to prove authority — arguing that relatable, consistent narratives accelerate sales cycles, reduce churn, and convert social attention into measurable business impact.
B2B Swings Past Clicks, Moves To Engagement In Measuring Paid Search
With paid search still taking up roughly 40% of many B2B marketing budgets, vendors and agencies are pushing measurement beyond raw clicks toward account-level engagement and pipeline impact.
Marketing tech platform, Channel99, launched a Paid Search Optimization product that it says connects keywords and ad groups to target accounts, scores engagement (introducing “cost-to-engage” as a CFO-friendly KPI), and uses AI to identify waste and reallocate budget.
Channel99 executives argue that measuring at the account or segment level gives a fuller, full-funnel view and can reshape downstream programs and that its approach has driven “2–3x” higher engagement in early examples.
