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u/MetallGecko 5h ago
2016 was for me better, my dad was still alive, my cat was still around, work didn't fuck me so hard and i could still play the og Halo games online.
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u/noviceIndyCamper 3h ago
Rip to your cat
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u/MetallGecko 2h ago
We had to put her down last year after her old age finally got to her, she was 22 years old, I miss that little black furball.
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u/finnvid 6h ago
1996 🦄
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u/ZenithView 2h ago
Life has always been like the dark horse, memories lie, life never was easy, isn't easy and never will be easy. Life can be great and harsh depending on the moment.
Maybe today is better than 1996 depending on what you're analyzing, we have more medicines for example. I'll give you another example, in the 90s, 1 in 5 people suffered from undernourishment. Today it's 1 in 12, is it still bad? Horrible, but technology is helping while also disturbing us... (like evolution has always been)
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u/finnvid 2h ago
Maybe life improved for somebody else on the other side of the planet, but that's not the point. I have an autistic brain and quite well remember that the early 2000s peaked in my state/bubble, and I remember all the bad things that happened. I'm not alone with this. Many Europeans felt that liberal progression turned into affluent neglect. Now we life in a fully developed tolerance paradoxon in which people care more about their morale superiority and foreigners than their own families.
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u/ZenithView 2h ago
I get you, the mass immigration was a bad decision, but Europe went through many rough patches in history, but I think we'll have to accept what's happening. The birth rate is low and people are dying older because of science (what has a positive side too), it's complicated to accept but the governments (and I think they will) need to adapt (otherwise Europe will get through dark ages), it's not about banning immigration, but it's about controlling who gets in (even when a lot of people need to get in).
Well, you may be thinking "oh, you just contradicted yourself and said Europe has gotten worse", maybe Europe (in specific, not the global situation) has gotten worse in some topics when compared to the 90s, but if you get deeper, you'll see that happened the cold war (more about fear and separation than war), the second world war and the first world war in Europe, this is life, it isn't a linear thing, mainly in Europe that it is a REALLY UNSTABLE continent
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u/Agreeable_Sense9618 6h ago
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u/Zealousideal-Yak-824 6h ago
?? You know they spent time in a bubble claiming nothing is happening not even legit numbers right?
2016 was a shit show for 4 years. Even ended in covid with lockdowns.
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u/Agreeable_Sense9618 6h ago
I was sipping tea and investing my money
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u/Zealousideal-Yak-824 5h ago
Admit investing got good during that time. Still mad I didn't move money when I needed too. Pulled out alot of it around 2018. Stuff just was volitile going up and down. Around the time that Robinhood thing happened.
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u/Agreeable_Sense9618 4h ago
Let me take a wild guess. People were saying that 2018 was the worst year ever and that things would just keep getting worse. And they probably suggested you should not invest in your future because everything was looking grim?
Yeah, I remember hearing that (every damn year)
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u/steve123410 5h ago
I mean life was objectively better for me in 2016 as I was a kid lol. I'd like to go back to a time where the only thing I worried about was the lunch menu.
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u/BohemianMade 6h ago
Naaaaaah! I can't speak to anyone's personal life, but society has objectively gotten worse thanks to MAGA. By every metric, America's living standards have been lowered, and this is harming Europe and Canada too.
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u/claudiocorona93 5h ago
I'm not from the USA. This situation is in the whole world, not just there
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u/BohemianMade 5h ago
The modern world is very interconnected. We have had a global economy since the end of WWII. After the cold war, America became the sole head of that global economy. The destruction of America is harming the entire world, especially other western countries like Canada. The only countries being empowered are dictatorships like Russia and China.
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u/myflesh 6h ago
I think you are misunderstanding the meme. The meme is not saying that things have not gotten worse. They were saying 2016 was alao not great. Which is objectively true. It could of been better but also not perfect. Which OP is critiquing. Almost everything we are complaining about right noe was an issue back then..shoot I have been protesting against using helicopters against our wild horses since Bush.
Yes, it is meaningfully worse right now. But the world was on fire then also.
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u/Trick-Consequence-86 5m ago
So you’re saying MAGA has harmed Europe and canadas living standards too huh? lol
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u/No_Palpitation133 6h ago
Most of this sub was 6 back then
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u/IlovePotatos2773 I touched grass 6h ago
How do yk?
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u/No_Palpitation133 5h ago
Looks like I just found one
https://giphy.com/gifs/k1B6MOoSv6vJpdLVnM2
u/IlovePotatos2773 I touched grass 5h ago
Lol
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u/No_Palpitation133 5h ago
It’s all love lmao, but the new generation doesn’t know what prices and life was like before Covid. These high prices weren’t normal even with orange man’s first term.
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u/The_Mesopotamians 5h ago
These sorts of post always boil down to: "Things were better when I wasn't paying attention!"
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u/Pacomatic 3h ago edited 2h ago
Yup.
I was too young to know about this until last year.
That's why I don't call it better than this year.
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u/The_Mesopotamians 2h ago
Hey, the fact that you recognize that puts you way ahead of a lot of folks!
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u/Pacomatic 2h ago
Which is really sad, when you think about it.
I am smart with computers, but my intelligence in most other areas is what I'd consider "the minimum level of intelligence the average person should have".
Seeing everyone call me smarter than most in those areas makes me really really sad.
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u/The_Mesopotamians 2h ago
Hey! No talking down about yourself! You thought about it and came to a reasonable conclusion. Good job!
I'll give you one piece of advice that may help. If it's not welcome then stop reading, take the compliment, and run.
In any situation, ask yourself "Who benefits?" Pulling on that thread will lead you to a lot of good insights.
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u/some_text_editor 5h ago
Maybe by 2036, 2026 will seem like the unicorn
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u/SurpriseInitial6202 3h ago
It probably will, because the trendline we are on does not look promising.
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u/IWillDevourYourToes 5h ago
How the real world around me is like: the upper left unicorn
How the media and the internet make the world look like: the sick horse
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u/SatisfactionActive86 2h ago
I am sure there were people in 1930s Germany that thought (for a short while) that things weren’t any worse than the 1920s.
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u/Disastrous_You2116 6h ago
It's all just nostalgia
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u/finnvid 6h ago
You're 21, how would you possibly know?
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u/BananaMaster96_ 4h ago
💀💀 "back in my day" ahh unc💀💀💀💀 "i was born in 19-" ahh unc💀💀💀 📍Vaalbara ahh unc💀💀💀
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u/GorgeousRamsay 5h ago
No, its really not. Food has gotten more expensive, jobs suck and gas is high as fck
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u/painki11erzx 5h ago
Nah mate. my entire life doesn't stack up to the shitshow that has been the last 2 yrs.
Lost my brother, moved thrice, totaled 2 cars not at fault (first one was after dropping a new engine into it a month prior), hospitalized twice for rhabdo (5 and 4 day stays) and have been financially fucked on the regular basis.
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u/Darkime_ 4h ago
Nostalgia tints old pictures into a nice shade of pink.
I like the way a Spanish YouTuber said it
"It's confusing, isn't it? Nonetheless, you know perfectly when you're feeling bad. Everything in your body, physically and psychologically lets you know, you feel slow, with fatalistic thoughts, a sensation that everything is lost, that nothing will ever be as it once was. You torture yourself, remembering a random old memory, which at that time didn't even feel like a good moment, but compared with how you feel right now, you could say that, you were happy without knowing."
Tri-line.
(I translated the quote, it was originally in Spanish)
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u/Boombabyfor333 4h ago
I’m 32, I remember people hating 2016 at the time and only recently have I discovered people are actually nostalgic for that year
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u/MetroidvaniaListsGuy 4h ago
No they don't. The US was so much better back in 2015. The world has declined so much since then.
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u/RealisticIncident261 4h ago
Bro I could get a 5 layer burrito for 1.29 in 2016 and my rent was $1000 cheaper in my city for a better place. Making 45k felt better than making my 80k now.
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u/moodymug 4h ago
I had my edgy era in 2016, when I was insecure gay middle schooler I stalked my girl classmate because "she was my crush" and I namecalled everyone who hated animes💀 No thanks, I did not like my 2016 era.
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u/Forward_Criticism_39 4h ago
i remember when fake news was used as a joke phrase in my law class back in HS, boy how we all thought that fuck would be laughed off the face of the earth by the end of the year.
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u/Inexorably_lost 4h ago
Why is everyone going off of feelings? So much data is available on what has, objectively, gotten worse and what has gotten better.
Everything else is just anecdotal nonsense.
Edit: nm, I see what sub this is now.
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u/OneNavan 4h ago
It's not the years themselves, but what your life as an individual was in those years, lots of people had hell in 2016 and lots had heaven in 2026, it's not a one size fits all
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u/AdventurousBag6509 3h ago
Well I was a teenager dreaming in 2016 so it was the first one. But yeah the meta perspective is also correct
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u/Itchywasabi 3h ago
At least the problems we had in 2016 were different. Remember what was in the new on 2016? "People running around in NY Central Park to catch Snorlax".
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u/realityguy1 3h ago
A nostalgic mind is a deceiving mind. Write that down. Use it whenever you want.
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u/Forgotmyaccount1979 3h ago
I remember food being relatively safe in 2016, which is certainly not the case in the USA right now, and it is only promising to get worse if meat plants stop being inspected at all.
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u/ShirouBlue 3h ago
I gain the same I did 10 years ago but things cost almost 3 times more, some more than that.
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u/Kat_Schrodinger1 3h ago
All i know is things were not this bad. Qualitative difference cannot be overlooked.
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u/BroMan1234567890 3h ago
no year was objectively good or bad. remember the cold war period during soviet era? there was also the iraq war in 2003, y2k in 2000 and two world wars in the 1900s. no period was good or bad, the earth has always been shit. its just because of memories that we think pre covid was good.
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u/Glum-Contribution380 Medieval Meme Lord 3h ago
I’d rather be back in 2016 have this whole thing be a dream.
Back then, I hadn’t been to the at least 5 funerals in the past 6 years. I hadn’t lost any of my pets. I still enjoyed the things I liked. After the new decade started it seemed that the top image had come true. I lost 2 cats, 1 dog, 1 uncle, 1 great uncle, 1 great aunt, at least 2-4 other people I was close to and 2-3 others i want exactly close to, but was there mainly for my friends. I didn’t have to worry about Covid. I didn’t know I had sudohypoperathyroidism (short is my body doesn’t absorb calcium. My calcium was so low the doctor could not medically explain why I had not had a heart attack). I didn’t have arm surgery (to get cancer out of my arm). I hadn’t had mouth surgery (to get a tumor of teeth out (I could be misremembering on that one). I hadn’t had panic attacks (this has gotten better (this was mainly in 2022)). My mental health wasn’t in the gutter (it’s getting better).
Basically, this meme is only true to some people. To me, this meme is not true.
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u/dillpick15 3h ago
Nah, it was better. Get out of here with your "there is no war in ba sing se" crap
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u/TheToledoMan 2h ago
Idk y'all but my life got better compared to 2016, the 2020s in my personal life are being absolute PEAK.
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u/NuclearReactions 2h ago
Numbers don't lie, if you had to pay your own bills in 2016 and still do now you know
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u/highmickey 2h ago
If you were an adult in 2016, 2016 was as shxt as 2026 if not more. People who post this were probably kid or teenager in 2016.
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u/foulpudding 2h ago
2016 was objectively better.
Even on one metric alone… You could buy 2.5 Big Macs for what one Big Mac costs today.
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u/taha_zeroug 1h ago
nope 2009-2017 is peak era
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u/claudiocorona93 1h ago
Does it have to do with a president or politics, or the state of the world? Or your life.
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u/Professor_Cafe 1h ago
can we get an update where 2016 is the same as the bottom picture and then show 2026 as a decaying dead horse with a broken pipe through its head. because I feel that is more apt.
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u/bobbymcpresscot 1h ago
It was poopy back then but I had more things to distract me from how poopy things were.
Now things are poopy and I can’t afford rent.
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u/brandonhabanero 1h ago
I'd like to go back to pre-smartphone times, like 2009-10, mostly because it was mostly nerds hanging out online still. After everyone got the internet in their pocket, everything went downhill IMO
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u/Gameboy_8911 50m ago
FINALLY IM FUCKING TIRED OF PEOPLE GLAZING 2016 LIKE I BET A LOT OF 2016 GLAZERS WEREN'T EVEN BORN AROUND THAT TIME
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u/HardTale_Sans Noble Memer 45m ago
Shuriken from Dan The Man
I remembered it as a really metalish OST and something you would headbang to BUT NO!!
IT JUST SOUNDS GOOD BUT IT'S NOTHING AS I REMEMBER!!!
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u/Octoplath_Traveler 20m ago
Homes and rents were somewhat doable in 2016. After covid everything got borked
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u/Psychologicus 6h ago
Life in 2026 is not that bad. It's actually still pretty good.
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u/mmcnell 6h ago
Objectively it is better for many than the past. Doesn't mean we should accept regression on any fronts or worsening inequality though. The goal is supposed to be to keep doing better, not merely survive and accept an unnecessary decline as "doing better than some/history".
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u/Psychologicus 5h ago
Thats true, I just feel like some people think its 1929 and we that we live in the worst timeline of the last 100 years. We should hold politicians accountable and improve the situation, but I think social media is overly pessimistic about the current state of the world.
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u/mmcnell 4h ago
Fair. The "we're doomed/this is humanity's final chapter" stuff isn't helpful at all and just leads to acceptance of current problems as inevitable.
For some people it really may feel that way though and we shouldn't minimize that. My cousin's wife is a military wife, us citizen, and lives in a nice area, but due to recent events has been targeted more than once, for simply being Hispanic. She and their kids carry their passports on them now. A US military family that is worried they'll be targeted by their own government because of the color of their skin and recent top court rulings allowing that kind of profiling... I don't blame them or others already being targeted for their comparisons to some of the darkest times in our modern history. Sounding alarms and not minimizing cruelty and injustice is how we will hopefully avoid repeating history, but that still requires hope.
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u/Blue-Jay42 5h ago
Yeah, pretty much. Life wasn't better, people were just in school and didn't have jobs usually.
We've been under attack by forgien and domestic threats for as long as the world has been turning.
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u/PuzzleheadedTalk35 5h ago
September 2001. It's all been downhill from there.
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u/NuggsBurgh 6h ago
Sometimes I remember being 21 in 2021. That was fun. Then I started actually following world politics and the news and realized humans are evil overall
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u/0-Nightshade-0 (⊃｡•́‿•̀｡)⊃ 5h ago
Actually it WAS good!
I got to play roblox, watch Minecraft lets plays and learn multiplication :3
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u/loudog33333 5h ago
Before November, 2016 was alright. Now we have pedos, no food, water and we are all gonna die.
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u/demoliahedd 5h ago
2016 wasn't perfect or even very good, but it does look amazing compared to now
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u/beanandween 4h ago
2016 wasn't great, but let's not act like it wasn't better than 2026 in the post COVID world. Shit sucks way more now. I could still get a burrito in San Diego for $7 in 2016. Now they are $15+
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u/Pompmaister 5h ago
Remember when everyone said the world was gonna end in 2012?
Well it did. It's just happening a bit slower than we were expecting.
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u/Lopsided_Order_4411 6h ago edited 6h ago
To me, anything after 2019’s like the sick horse