2026 is the New 2016…So Here’s What Students Were Loving in 2016

Remember when iPhones had a button?

It’s the first month of 2026 but we’ve gone back in time.

2016 is making a huge comeback.

It’s a little bit crazy that 2016 was ten years ago and even crazier everyone cares that it’s back in ‘fashion’.

But if you weren’t old enough to remember 2016, here’s what students were obsessed with back then.

Kylie Jenner lip kits.

Lip balm? We don’t know her. If you were wearing anything on your lips, it was definitely a Kylie lip kit.

They came in a range of colours like red, light pink and... bright blue?

They were approximately $40AUD when they were released, and everyone rushed to order these direct from the USA.

She was really in her King Kylie era.

DW, if you’re nostalgic for these lip kits you can still buy them from MECCA.

The mannequin challenge.

If hearing “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd makes you pause you’re probably old enough to remember this trend.

If you have no idea what we’re talking about, the Mannequin challenge was a video trend where everyone would pause and try and stay as still as a mannequin for a portion of the song “Black Beatles”.

We know it sounds very straightforward, but it took the internet by storm in 2016.

If you were graduating or attending high school in 2016, there’s no doubt your year group filmed this trend.

Pokémon Go.

Having lived through the Pokémon Go phenomenon, we can safely say it was truly the time to be alive.

It was all about catching them all, and more importantly, catching rare Pokémon.

The number of times we made our parents stop the car so we could catch a Pikachu was endless.

Despite being a mobile game, it did foster a beautiful online community of people who all then all ended up in the same physical space.

Black chokers.

Need an accessory to compliment an outfit? Better grab a black choker.

No Tumblr fashion person’s outfit was complete without their signature black choker.

And who could forget the lacy chokers that everyone was obsessed with?

Chokers in generally were huge in 2016.

They even had celebs in a chokehold. Don’t believe us? Just Google search ‘Coachella 2016’.

Flat lays on Instagram.

If you can believe it, there actually was a time before TikTok existed.

And before this time, Insta was the app everyone had. And the easiest way to start a blog or go viral as an influencer on IG was to post flat lays.

Coffee cups, notebooks and skincare seemingly messily arranged and a photo taken from a birds eye view. It was all about aesthetics over algorithms, carefully curated feeds, and spending way too long rearranging objects for “effortless” vibes.