E I’m sorry to break it to you, but 2026 is actually starting off just as shitty as 2025 ended. The world situation makes me numb when I read the news in my 8 square meter room and feel even more confined than I already do. So it’s no wonder that everyone on social media is drowning in 2016 nostalgia: bottle flips, dog filters, Adidas Superstar and so on everywhere! Hashtag: “Bring back 2016”
I am firmly convinced that 2016 is more of a trend for millennials because we GenZers were only eleven to fourteen years old back then. And, oh boy, who was having a good time at that age? In 2016 I was thirteen, with crooked bangs and dyed black hair. I played Nintendo DS all day and had my first relationship with a guy who was way too old. (He was eighteen!) In 2016, I almost sat out and thought I was straight.
I wish I could indulge in nostalgia too, but 2016 is not a year I’m mourning because at thirteen I unfortunately don’t have any musical.ys „Faded“ von Alan Walker I lipsynced or took pictures with a dog filter, but lay alone in my room and cried very, very much.
But hey, I’m still alive: a pandemic, October 7th, a few wars of aggression, a radical shift to the right, dismantling of the welfare state and Trump’s second term later! This makes you wonder: How are we, personally, actually doing in 2026?
I guess I’m a “climber”
2026 marks my fourth year in Leipzig. In 2026, I ate in the cafeteria at least 600 times, which is easy to do here because the University of Leipzig has one of the top 10 cafeterias in Germany. 2026 is the year I will complete my bachelor’s degree. That makes me a “climber,” whatever that means. Because where will I be promoted if I start training in the same year and nothing has changed in terms of my wage dependency?
In 2026 I will have more money on my cafeteria card than in my account
2026 is the year when I have more money on my cafeteria card than in my account and I have to worry about what quarter-life crisis mine will be. (I already have a racing bike.) 2026 will be the year in which I have to prepare for my lifelong freedom from smoking in order to stop smoking when I’m 25 really to acknowledge. And 2026 is also the year, now things are getting serious again, in which I will be sick for longer periods of my life than I am healthy, because the depression from back then is still inscribed in my body.
Yes, this is not the kind of text that gives you hope and hope in the winter when you have a vitamin D deficiency. And to be honest: the fact that my cafeteria card appears here as one of the few positive things is also symbolic of what many others are feeling right now. That doesn’t mean to sound so cynical. But if I look at annual reviews from 2025 and the “highlight” is that a new animal species was discovered and not that the unconditional basic income was introduced for everyone, then it’s a bit like saying: “Golden brown broccoli patty in fine vegetable goulash” is the highlight of my day.
And I’ll be honest, I also wish that I could be more happy about disarmament and the end of all genocides than about a dry vegetable patty for 2.80. I hope that in 2036 we will have left the sadness of 2026 behind us and there will be some 2016 nostalgia again, because 2026 is just a faded, bad memory – if you’re checking.