open polity

Tag: politics

  • The 2016 Nostalgia Trend: Why Gen Z’s Internet Throwback Reflects Political Anxiety in 2026

    The 2016 Nostalgia Trend: Why Gen Z’s Internet Throwback Reflects Political Anxiety in 2026

    Since the beginning of the year, the internet has been flooded by 2016 nostalgia. From rose-tinted filters to viral Musical.ly sounds and users sharing personal 2016 photos, a strong desire to return to the past has dominated digital platforms. This trend is not limited to Gen Z; people of all ages and backgrounds have participated, underscoring how widely this sense of nostalgia isfelt. 2026 marks a decade since 2016, so it is understandable why people are looking back and reminiscing. However, the scale of this nostalgia trend was not seen last year,  when a decade had passed since 2015. This suggests that what appears at first to be a harmless internet trend may reflect something deeper. Widespread nostalgia often signals dissatisfaction with the present and a longing for a mythic past. It suggests that something has gone wrong in our current reality.

    Scrolling through social media feeds, amid videos and pictures referencing 2016, it has been hard to escape more serious content depicting ICE brutality in the US, widespread protests in Iran and even discussions of Trump potentially invading Greenland. Many people around the world live in constant fear and uncertainty, so it makes sense for them to retreatto a time when life felt better. When people are nostalgic, often, what they remember is not the full historical reality of that year, but how life felt. Many people participating in this trend were younger at the time and so, more shielded from economic instability, rising living costs, climate anxiety, digital overload, and constant exposure to global crises through social media. Therefore, life felt a lot easier for them.

    However, 2016 was, in many ways, the beginning of the political reality we are living in today. 2016 was the year Donald Trump won his first U.S. Presidential election, an event widely viewed as the catalyst for the intensification of the political polarisation that’s plaguing America today. Through his divisive rhetoric and politicisation of nostalgia, he mobilised millions of voters by framing the present as a decline and the past as something that needed to be restored. He promised to “Make America Great Again” by building a wall to curb migration levels. However, given America’s deeply contested history marked by slavery, Jim Crow laws and gender inequality, many commentators questioned what period this “greatness” referred to. 

    2016 also had major political implications in the UK. This was the year of the Brexit referendum, which resulted in the UK leaving the European Union after 52% of the country voted to “take back control”. The leave campaign, like Trump, also used the tactic of politicising nostalgia, as they framed EU membership as a loss of national sovereignty, promising a return to an earlier period of independence and control. For some individuals, this period is remembered as a time of greater cultural familiarity and less visible diversity. The leave campaign exploited this sentiment by strongly emphasising immigration.

    This recent trend seems to have forgotten this, instead focusing only on the positives of 2016. This is significant because it highlights that, if overindulged, nostalgia can produce a paradise that never has and never will exist, but that is pursued at all costs, taking away all joy and potential from the present. The danger of nostalgia, therefore, lies in its ability to move politics away from solving current issues towards attempting to recreate a mythic past. When this happens, progress is framed as decline, and so societies become more vulnerable to divisive rhetoric, exclusionary policies, and authoritarian leaders who promise to “restore” rather than “reform”. 

    Whilst this recent wave of nostalgia has mainly been felt by young people focusing on internet culture and memories of childhood, rather than something as explicitly political as national history, the underlying sentiment can align with wider political narratives. The past becomes a symbol of comfort and safety, while the present is the opposite and something we need to leave. This feeling can be manipulated into making people believe that society has moved in the wrong direction. Consequently, instead of a politics of progress and democratic debate, we get a politics of division and democratic decline.

    If we look through history, we can see that authoritarian and fascist movements have often drawn on similar emotional dynamics. Leaders of these movements employ nostalgic rhetoric to highlight their country’s past greatness for their own political gain. This past greatness is often characterised by economic stability and cultural purity, which fascists/ authoritarian leaders promise to restore if given power. Fascist parties leverage this nostalgia to mobilise the working and middle classes by appealing to a shared sense of loss, exploiting cultural anxieties and economic insecurities. Walter Benjamin argued that fascism invokes a mythical past not to genuinely recover it, but to reframe the present in ways that justify oppressive policies.

    In emphasising the greatness of the nation in the past, fascist nostalgia is selective and ignores significant moments in the history of the nation. Things such as colonial violence, gender and racial inequality and class exploitation are omitted from the narrative of the nation’s past, instead presenting a homogenous society that never existed in reality. By manipulating cultural memory, fascism seeks to align popular discontent with its agenda, diverting anger away from the capitalist system and toward fabricated enemies of the state, such as immigrants or different cultural influences. The rise of far-right politics across Europe and America has coincided with an increase in this political tactic. 

    The 2016 nostalgia trend is an important reminder that a longing for the past can be exploited and manipulated for political gain. What begins as a desire for old trends and memes can evolve into a broader belief that the past was inherently better than the present. History illustrates how easily this feeling of longing can be redirected toward exclusion, blame, and promises of national restoration. Nostalgia itself is not a dangerous emotion to feel. It reflects humans’ natural desire for stability and security. The risk arises when these desires are directed toward chasing a version of the past that never truly existed.

  • From Abuse to Activism: Celta Vigo Tackles Homophobia and Toxic Masculinity in Football

    From Abuse to Activism: Celta Vigo Tackles Homophobia and Toxic Masculinity in Football

    Photo by Wesley Fávero on Unsplash

    During a match against Sevilla in January, Borja Iglesias was the subject of horrific homophobic abuse. Opposition fans weaponised the striker’s creativity by making derogatory references to his painted nails. In a powerful stand against this discrimination, Celta Vigo players and supporters wore nail polish in the following game against Rayo Vallecano to show solidarity with their player and also to demonstrate that homophobia has no place in football. Rainbow flags were also waved in the stands. After the game, Celta posted a picture of their players with their nail art with the caption: “Against Hate, Together.” This is significant because it demonstrates that football clubs can redirect something negative into something positive.

    Iglesias has painted his fingernails for years. In past interviews, he has said that he began doing it to highlight important social issues and stand against injustice and intolerance in society. The fact that something as small and simple as nail polish provoked such hostility highlights just how fragile and archaic ideas of masculinity are within football and, more broadly, sports culture. Since its inception, football has been characterised as a sport for men that demands toughness and aggression. 

    These are traits that are typically viewed as masculine. For decades, these rigid expectations excluded women from playing the game and also men who do not act in accordance with hyper-masculine norms. Football continues to confine anyone who attempts to step outside of the very narrow ideas of masculinity and gender norms. Whilst there have been attempts to eradicate these stereotypes and welcome the LGBTQ+ community, these have mainly been symbolic rather than transformative.

    Campaigns such as rainbow laces are symbolic acts that do well to signal awareness and discussion of the issue, but they often fail to confront the deeper cultural attitudes that are strongly ingrained within fan behaviour, locker room norms and footballing institutions. They have not done enough to change the narratives within football. The positive response of the Celta Vigo supporters and players shows that, in some instances, symbolic acts can become acts of resistance, reshaping the narrative by challenging entrenched ideas of masculinity in football. 

    A week before the Celta Vigo incident, Josh Cavallo, the first man to come out as gay while playing elite football, accused his former club Adelaide United of “internal homophobia” before his exit in 2025.  In a statement, he wrote: “It’s hard to swallow when I realised my own club was homophobic. I was angry because people thought I was sidelined based on injuries, when in reality, it was internal homophobia that kept me on the bench.” A spokesperson for the club said it “categorically rejects” these claims. 

    However, the fact that this was how he was made to feel is significant in itself. It illustrates that even when institutions publicly align themselves with inclusion and equality, the internal structures of these institutions prohibit any real progress. It also highlights that homophobia in football is not simply limited to chants in the stands. Football is supposed to be a unifying sport that brings people together, but instead, we still see attempts to keep those who do not confine themselves to traditional ideals of football culture pushed out. 

    The abuse that Borja Iglesias was a victim of only reinforces this. Its institutions and cultures often reproduce the same exclusionary politics taking place in society, showing that sport doesn’t escape politics, it reflects and magnifies it. As football is a microcosm for society, it reflects the wider political and cultural shift which has seen progress stalled for a return back to a more fixed, traditional social order where conformity is rewarded and difference is treated as a threat rather than something to be celebrated. 

    In the past few years, across Europe and America, there has been a significant rise in right-wing populism. Appeals to traditional social norms have marked this. Policies and rhetoric from these growing movements have framed LGBTQ+ rights as a threat. The effect of this has been seen through fan behaviour and institutional hesitation. Recent years have seen backlash to rainbow armbands, hostility toward women’s football gaining legitimacy, and abuse toward players who don’t fit hyper-masculine norms. The rise of the right doesn’t just influence what governments do; it shapes what is socially acceptable, who is celebrated and who is marginalised, on the pitch, in stadiums, and across the global fanbase.

    A cultural shift is unlikely if powerful institutions do not challenge this, and if inclusion continues to be treated as a symbolic performance rather than astructural necessity. Moments like Celta Vigo supporters painting their nails in solidarity show that progressive politics is still an option. Until governing bodies and institutions move beyond risk-avoidance, progress will continue to be uneven and vulnerable to backlash. 

    Imani Adesanya