“Goodbye 2014. Hello 2015” is what a lot of people posted going into the new year, me included. As we finish up the first month of 2025, many people look back as inspiration as to what they want to come out this year. Rewind all the way back to 2018 and all you see on your phone is Snapchat notifications. Scroll past to Instagram and you see post after post of LA influencers on the pink wall, posed up with the flower crown filter. This was the absolute peak of Instagram. Not only the peak of Instagram but the peak of social media as a whole. Life was so incredibly colorful. Looking back, we ask the question, why did life seem so enjoyable at this time? Why do we see people now want to replicate the joy created around this era?
When I look at our current era of teenagers and compare them to teens in 2016, I can see that they have similar things in common. The boldest similarity is the fashion, but only in one particular season. It is easy to argue this statement and use different styles to justify your argument, but I am not talking about modern styles like ‘downtown girl/boy’ or ‘modern y2k’. I am specifically talking about how styles like the ‘preppy’ style stem from the fashion of the Summers in the mid-to-late 2010s. When most people look at 2010’s fashion, they think of galaxy leggings with knee-high, fringe-infested boots. I think of Emma Chamberlin. Emma Chamberlain was a well-known YouTuber, known for her vlogs in 2017-2019. She won a Streamy Award in 2018 for ‘Breakout Creator’. What left a big impact was her style. She was mostly seen in short shorts with an oversized t-shirt. This outfit staple not only screams Summer for a niche amount of people, but it impacted a generation’s worth of 12-16-year-old girls who wore this same outfit for years on end, coming home to watch her videos (speaking from experience). We mostly see this style, now strung down to ‘preppy’ style in girls who share this style with guys who have the ‘surfer boy’ style. We can group them both into the same group since they both have styles that closely relate to those of Summer 2015-2019. They are both colorful, which we relate to being happy.
Everything in the 2010s was extremely colorful. Social media was booming with colorful filters. Snapchat used to be extremely popular. While it still is, definitely not to the extent as it was in (let’s say) 2019. Filters like the ‘Dog’ were seen as fun. Nowadays, it feels as though social media judges anything that could be “too fun” to any one individual. People we allowed to be expressive and not be affected by hate because there was none! It is an exaggeration to say there was no hate at all, but compared to today’s world of social media, there was little to no hate. Being loved on social media in our current times seems to constrict us to all thinking like a hive-mind. There are a lot of positives in a community, but too much community restricts individuality. Individuality thrived in the 2010s, which is how we have so many different trends to remember from that time. The mannequin trend, ice-bucket challenge, and painting on calculators all stemmed from people spreading creativity. People looking back on the 2010s most likely want that creativity.
The mid-to-late 2010s is a beautiful time to reflect on. It was a place full of color and creativity. If we really want to say “Hello 2015”, we should reflect on our actions from back then and put them into our current lives. Will we accomplish it? Only time will tell. Happy 2015 to everybody!