Culture

The Meme From 2016 That Explains 2026

The more turbulent the times, the more tempting it is to [gesture around at everything].

First published in The Atlantic on February 24, 2026.

by Megan Garber, The Atlantic

February 26, 2026 | reading time: 4 Min.

All times are interesting times, but the summer of 2016 was especially interesting. That July, as a Twitter user named Katie Loewy tried to make sense of mass shootings and Brexit and the rising political power of the host of The Celebrity Apprentice, she proposed a theory. “I’m not saying that David Bowie”—who had died earlier that year—“was holding the fabric of the universe together,” she wrote, “but *gestures broadly at everything*.”