Top 10 Things From 2016 Making a Comeback in 2026

Before it became a sprawling mythology, Stranger Things Season 1 was a perfect, contained 8-episode love letter to Spielberg, Stephen King, and 1980s suburban horror. The Duffer Brothers launched a global phenomenon from a Netflix algorithm recommendation. Eleven, the Upside Down, and Winona Ryder's Christmas lights became instant cultural icons. The show's final season is coming in 2025-2026, bringing the nostalgia full circle.

Beyonce dropped Lemonade in April 2016 with zero warning and shattered the music industry. The visual album — part concert film, part confession, part political statement — redefined what an album release could be. "Formation" became an anthem, the Becky with the good hair mystery consumed the internet for months, and every artist since has tried (and failed) to replicate the surprise-drop cultural earthquake.

Before TikTok dance challenges, there was the Mannequin Challenge: groups of people freezing in place while "Black Beatles" by Rae Sremmurd played. Everyone did it — schools, sports teams, the White House, even astronauts on the ISS. It was wholesome, inclusive, and required zero talent. The Mannequin Challenge was peak "early viral" internet: simple, participatory, and genuinely fun.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards in 2016 and became the hottest ticket in Broadway history. Hamilton made the Founding Fathers cool for a new generation and proved that musical theater could be culturally dominant again. The Disney+ film release in 2020 expanded its reach, and in 2026, it remains the most discussed and referenced musical of the 21st century.

On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, and the world has not been the same since. Brexit became the template for populist political earthquakes, preceded Trump's election by five months, and permanently altered European politics. Ten years later, polls show a majority of Brits would vote to rejoin, and the economic consequences remain hotly debated. Brexit was the moment the post-war liberal consensus cracked.

A gorilla shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child fell into his enclosure became the internet's most enduring and absurd meme. "Harambe" transcended the original tragedy to become a symbol of internet culture's ability to turn anything into a collective joke. "Dicks out for Harambe" was everywhere in 2016, and the meme's 10-year anniversary in 2026 has predictably gone viral again. The internet never lets go.

Drake was inescapable in 2016. "Hotline Bling" had already made him a meme king (the jacket-dance GIF is eternal), and Views debuted at number one with over one million album-equivalent units in its first week. The OVO Sound era defined what mainstream hip-hop sounded like for the next decade. Drake's cultural influence has since waned, but 2016 was his absolute peak — the moment he was simultaneously the biggest rapper and meme on the planet.

The 2016 US election — Clinton vs. Trump — was the most shocking political event of the 21st century. Polls predicted a comfortable Clinton win, and the world watched in disbelief as Trump flipped Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by a combined 77,000 votes. The election reshaped politics globally, birthed "fake news" as a concept, and created political fault lines that define discourse a decade later. 2016 was when certainty died.

2016's fashion was defined by the first major 1990s revival: choker necklaces, ripped jeans, bomber jackets, and platform sneakers flooded Instagram. Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner were the faces of the aesthetic. It was the bridge between the Tumblr era and the Instagram era of fashion — less polished than today's TikTok aesthetics, more accessible than high fashion. In 2026, the choker is back again, because fashion is a circle.

Before it became a sprawling mythology, Stranger Things Season 1 was a perfect, contained 8-episode love letter to Spielberg, Stephen King, and 1980s suburban horror. The Duffer Brothers launched a global phenomenon from a Netflix algorithm recommendation. Eleven, the Upside Down, and Winona Ryder's Christmas lights became instant cultural icons. The show's final season is coming in 2025-2026, bringing the nostalgia full circle.

Beyonce dropped Lemonade in April 2016 with zero warning and shattered the music industry. The visual album — part concert film, part confession, part political statement — redefined what an album release could be. "Formation" became an anthem, the Becky with the good hair mystery consumed the internet for months, and every artist since has tried (and failed) to replicate the surprise-drop cultural earthquake.

Before TikTok dance challenges, there was the Mannequin Challenge: groups of people freezing in place while "Black Beatles" by Rae Sremmurd played. Everyone did it — schools, sports teams, the White House, even astronauts on the ISS. It was wholesome, inclusive, and required zero talent. The Mannequin Challenge was peak "early viral" internet: simple, participatory, and genuinely fun.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards in 2016 and became the hottest ticket in Broadway history. Hamilton made the Founding Fathers cool for a new generation and proved that musical theater could be culturally dominant again. The Disney+ film release in 2020 expanded its reach, and in 2026, it remains the most discussed and referenced musical of the 21st century.

On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, and the world has not been the same since. Brexit became the template for populist political earthquakes, preceded Trump's election by five months, and permanently altered European politics. Ten years later, polls show a majority of Brits would vote to rejoin, and the economic consequences remain hotly debated. Brexit was the moment the post-war liberal consensus cracked.

A gorilla shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child fell into his enclosure became the internet's most enduring and absurd meme. "Harambe" transcended the original tragedy to become a symbol of internet culture's ability to turn anything into a collective joke. "Dicks out for Harambe" was everywhere in 2016, and the meme's 10-year anniversary in 2026 has predictably gone viral again. The internet never lets go.

Drake was inescapable in 2016. "Hotline Bling" had already made him a meme king (the jacket-dance GIF is eternal), and Views debuted at number one with over one million album-equivalent units in its first week. The OVO Sound era defined what mainstream hip-hop sounded like for the next decade. Drake's cultural influence has since waned, but 2016 was his absolute peak — the moment he was simultaneously the biggest rapper and meme on the planet.

The 2016 US election — Clinton vs. Trump — was the most shocking political event of the 21st century. Polls predicted a comfortable Clinton win, and the world watched in disbelief as Trump flipped Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by a combined 77,000 votes. The election reshaped politics globally, birthed "fake news" as a concept, and created political fault lines that define discourse a decade later. 2016 was when certainty died.

2016's fashion was defined by the first major 1990s revival: choker necklaces, ripped jeans, bomber jackets, and platform sneakers flooded Instagram. Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner were the faces of the aesthetic. It was the bridge between the Tumblr era and the Instagram era of fashion — less polished than today's TikTok aesthetics, more accessible than high fashion. In 2026, the choker is back again, because fashion is a circle.