Remember 2016? This Is It Now

I deleted my Facebook account in 2013. I don’t say this to look “cool” or “ahead of the times” — trust me, my last post here was a ranking of Thanksgiving stuff, looking cool is not one of my priorities. I state it only as a matter of fact. I’ve also had and subsequently deleted:

• A LiveJournal (how quixotic!)
• A MySpace (it’s not you, Tom, it’s me)
• A Twitter account (two of them, in fact #indecisive)
• A DeviantArt (exclusively for MS Paint masterpieces)
• A Tumblr (at least, I think I did — it might have just disappeared)
• A Google+ account (which DID just disappear)
• A Threads account (which might as well disappear because why bother?)

As of today, my social media consumption is pretty small. It consists mostly of Instagram browsing with occasional forays into Bluesky and reddit. I could probably do without any of them, but there are still some wonderful pockets of the Internet to be found. Besides, the habit is hard to break. There’s a LOT of cute animals out there.

A smarter person can (and probably already has) made a compelling, empirically-sound case for why social media is destroying our psyches and ripping society apart at the seams. There’s no way the emotional whiplash of doomscrolling and dopamine hits and getting force-fed AI slop all while being told we can now literally bet on anything is a good outcome. Christ, today’s version of The Internet is essentially a turbo-charged version of the one Bo Burnham sang about five years ago.

All of this to say that my Instagram feed is full of 2016 throwback content right now, and it’s giving me existential agita. How does 2016 feel like it was just yesterday and 400 years ago at the same time?

It’s only fair to mention up front that 2016 was not a banner time for ol’ JSG. I was miserable at work and lonely in my social life. My world became increasingly myopic as my mental health declined and maladaptive coping mechanisms took hold. Spending weekends holed up in my apartment with a bottle of Buffalo Trace and a two-liter of Coke Zero was not, in fact, the cure for my situation. It was pretty great for the liquor stores near me, though. I probably put a few kids through college.

Anyway, just know that 2016 isn’t the kind of year I look back on with rose-colored eyes and fresh, fuzzy feelings — but I’m not sure it would be even if my life had been amazing. Even if things weren’t as consistently or aggressively harrowing in 2016 as they are now, we were certainly headed there. The Internet used to be smaller, more like a destination. Message boards and ICQ channels and early chat rooms brought like-minded people together. Entire websites were made to host Flash cartoons. Just as crucially, it was something you sat down at your computer to use and when you got up, it didn’t come with you. Search engines and websites relied on you to tell them what you wanted to see.

I don’t need to rehash what’s changed since the 1990s. The advent of social media, the profit-seeking, subscription-modeling, endlessly-algorithmic enshittification of everything, that’s all well documented. I guess my main point is more that when I look around, the world from 2016 doesn’t seem that different from the world of today. What’s changed is how I interface with it and relate to it.

I glossed over it a little bit earlier, but there are still some wonderful pockets of The Internet to be found. reddit as a whole is an exhausting experience full of reposts and the same copypasta jokes and memes … but niche subreddits can be a tremendous place of learning, support, entertainment, you name it.

X is a horrifying Hell on Earth that — and I can’t believe this is STILL true — is using AI to generate and peddle CSAM … but Bluesky is a place where I’ve discovered some wonderful and talented people, people whose creativity and passion have encouraged me to branch out into writing.

Even right here, on Substack, there’s been a fair amount of consternation about the platform’s refusal to condemn Nazi and Nazi-adjacent creators … but it’s also the home of the wonderful Molly Knight and her intentionally-created space for sports free from the toxicity of The Internet.

All of these things, in small doses, are still great. Even as The Internet slowly dies under the weight of a billion bot accounts and AI server farms that consume an entire town’s water supply, these communal oases are more important than ever. So no, 2026 isn’t great. 2016 wasn’t great. Maybe it 2036 won’t be either. But I’ve learned how to engage with intentionality, and it’s helped tremendously. Here’s to the next 10 years of learning and evolving.