Rabat – It began globally before the wave crossed into Morocco, where suddenly everybody’s timeline was filled with 2016 once again. Yet what we have revived is not 2016, but the recollection of how it felt living through it.
However, 2016 in Morocco is different from today.
Back then, Facebook was where everything happened, while Instagram was still a rare sight. It was almost elite. You only used it when the picture looked perfect.
Facebook, on the other hand, was chaotic. It was about emotions, honesty, song lyrics as posts, random thoughts, and jokes.
Everyone knew the same memes at the same time. It felt like being wrapped in a collective thought.
Millennials have a different recollection of the time than Gen Z, yet both groups can agree on one thing: it was more human and transparent than now.
In 2026, those old videos and memes are back but it is not quite the same. We are realizing that the space itself has shifted.
We are familiar with American slang words. They are familiar with Moroccan jokes. We follow Korean trends, French aesthetics and international humor.
They see ours too. Popular culture now travels instantly and memes’ references are no longer local, they became global currency.
Captions shifted to English language and are shaped for worldwide reach. Moroccan creators are no longer speaking only to Morocco, they are speaking to the algorithm.
Because of this change in the worldwide marketplace, everyone now has a global audience and is no longer limited to national boundaries in creating content.
This changes everything. One of the most significant changes that Millennials and Gen Z can see about today’s social media compared to early 2016 is this: back then, everyone was using social media in the same way.
That is not the case anymore. The same posts, pictures, and videos are now being reposted in 2026, but they are displayed within the new definition of social media.
AI is now used to create images and write captions. It’s authoritative content optimized for shareability. Everything is well-researched, well-presented, and well-planned and yet strangely familiar.
The human element appears to be gradually erased, posting is no longer an activity of sharing, but an activity of positioning.
Social media was an expression in 2016 but now? It is a performance.
Creators used to post for their friends now they post for reach numbers. What used to be free time and a few minutes of escape is now potentially a full time endless scrolling profitable job .
What was once a hobby has become an investment feed that begins to resemble resumes.
Profiles look like Linkedin accounts disguised as lifestyle journals.
This is where the metaphor of the glass shell begins: we are all visible, we are all clear. In fact, there is nowhere to hide.
We see likes, shares, interests of each one of us yet we are sheltered and pressured to perform.
We live in a culture where everything is 100% visible yet we are disconnected from one another.
2016 social media in Morocco was about expressing life and discovering one another. But today’s social media is about the art of performing your life within a global see through system.
It is the same nostalgia, yet a different reality.
