Since the dawn of Facebook albums, millennials have been cursed with an omnipresent fear of being “cringe” online. The trait itself is strangely intangible — not necessarily defined by something you can see, hear, or even reliably identify through social cues, but by a deep, intrinsic feeling that you have tried too hard, and therefore been earnestly, painfully uncool.

Lately, we’re told that cringe is “back.” You can’t scroll without being inundated with relics of 2016: hazy nostalgia reels soundtracked to Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen,” once the undisputed anthem of the year. That era is being romanticized as a time when we felt truly free — the final days of Obama’s America, blissfully unaware of macros, when Coachella flower crowns, ripped denim shorts, and American Apparel still reigned. And yet, I remember 2016. By then, we had already outlawed “share anything” social media and were steadily embracing a more curated online presence. Overearnest young upstarts were being eviscerated in every plotline of Girls. We collectively shuddered at Katy Perry’s “Left Shark” during the 2015 Super Bowl.

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