2016 is remembered for many reasons, from historical events that impacted the globe and the elevation of various cultural movements, to a rise in awareness of issues concerning the arts and the deaths of artists whose works continue to shape society now.
As we continue to look back on 2016, a decade later, the Massachusetts Daily Collegian has listed some of the most significant moments in the arts that have shaped and continue to shape culture today.
Harambe
Photo courtesy of IMDb
On May 28, 2016, a young boy fell into the enclosure of Harambe, a western lowland gorilla, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The gorilla subsequently dragged the boy around the enclosure. Citing that the child’s life was in danger, the Zoo’s personnel fatally shot Harambe.
According to the Zoo’s then-director, Thane Maynard, Harambe did not comply when called out of the exhibit, and giving him a tranquilizer could have agitated Harambe further. “We are heartbroken about losing Harambe, but a child’s life was in danger and a quick decision had to be made by our Dangerous Animal Response Team,” Maynard said at the time.
Harambe’s killing sparked extensive debate over animal welfare and the ethicality of zoos. Marc Bekoff of Scientific American wrote that Harambe did not kill the child instantly as many feared he would, and that being confined prevented Harambe from living freely. “Indeed, one might argue that the animal people were seeing was not really a true western lowland gorilla, surely not an ambassador for his species,” Bekoff said.
The outpouring of grief over Harambe’s death made him a symbol of respect as well as an internet meme. Funny Tweets posted a picture of a tube of Gorilla Glue, captioning it, “they call it gorilla glue because Harambe was metaphorically the glue that held this nation together.” During the presidential election that year, rumors circulated that Harambe, who had been dead for months by then, had won thousands of write-in votes.
More maliciously, pictures of Harambe were used to racially attack some celebrities. In August, racist abusers hacked comedian Leslie Jones’s social media and compared her to Harambe. Following the attacks against Jones, the Cincinnati Zoo deactivated its Twitter account for two months.
#OscarsSoWhite
Photo courtesy of IMDb
The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag was first posted by journalist April Reign in 2015 to criticize the lack of racial diversity among the Academy Award nominees. The following year, for the second consecutive time, there were no nominees of color, and films that starred actors of color that were not nominated included “Creed” and “Straight Outta Compton,” although the white personnel who worked on the latter were nominated.
#OscarsSoWhite saw renewed awareness during the 2016 awards season, when some performers and directors boycotted the ceremony. Host Chris Rock addressed the controversy in his opening speech. “I’m here at the Academy Awards — otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards,” Rock said. “If they nominated hosts, I would never have gotten this job.”
A month before the ceremony, the Academy stated its intent to nominate more racially diverse performers. Its board members passed a motion aiming to “double the number of women and diverse members by 2020.” Further, to continue introducing diversity among the board, it was announced that members who joined from that year onwards would be given 10-year terms of membership that would only be renewed if they continued with their careers.
Hamilton
From the 2020 film adaptation of “Hamilton.” Photo courtesy of IMDb
“Hamilton,” composed by playwright and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, was first performed in January 2015 before coming to Broadway that August. Although it had been released the year before, 2016 is when “Hamilton” started to become more broadly recognized. It was nominated for a record-breaking 16 Tony Awards that June and won 11 of them; it also won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in February and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in April.
“Hamilton” chronicles the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, from his arrival to the United States to his death in a duel against Aaron Burr, through various forms of music, including rap. Miranda himself played Hamilton, while Leslie Odom Jr. played Burr and Renée Elise Goldsberry played Hamilton’s sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler Church; all three actors won Tony Awards that year. “Hamilton” has been credited with challenging racial barriers in theater by employing a diverse cast to depict the United States’ history, thus inspiring other productions on and off-Broadway to cast diverse performers.
Conversely, the play has been criticized for downplaying and even distorting elements of American history. Annette Gordon-Reed of the National Council on Public History argued that the play depicted Hamilton as an “ardent abolitionist.” While Hamilton has not traditionally been described as a vocal proponent of slavery, he was not completely opposed to it either, as he married into the slave-owning Schuyler family and supported the “three-fifths” clause that counted slaves as only three-fifths of an individual.
“[Hamilton] was much better than other founders on the question, but almost certainly did not believe that the colonists would ‘never be free’ until people in bondage had the same rights as everyone,” Gordon-Reed wrote.
“Hamilton” has also been praised for making American history accessible to the public. Proponents have praised the play for making Hamilton and other figures more accessible and relevant to audiences. David Smith, senior lecturer of history at Baylor University, said that “Hamilton” also humanized its characters and portrayed them as complex figures.
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s official Instagram
After 13 years of careful construction and curation, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture opened its doors on Sept. 24, 2016, where former President Barack Obama led the opening ceremony. The Smithsonian created the museum with the goal of representing both painful truths and influential achievements in America’s past, inviting all Americans to learn about Black history and culture.
Proposals for a museum honoring the achievements of African Americans have dated back to 1915. It wasn’t until former President George W. Bush signed legislation in 2003 that the Smithsonian Institute was authorized to begin work on the museum, which sits on five acres of the National Mall.
Every detail in the museum’s architecture tells a story within African American history. The building’s three-tiered structure resembles a traditional Yoruba crown. The distinct levels were curated to take visitors through a historical journey, beginning in the basement with the transatlantic slave trade and continuing upwards to Obama’s presidency and displays about police brutality. In the upper galleries, the museum showcases the African American community and culture, displaying the diversity of the African American experience across the U.S. and highlighting contributions to the arts, sports and the military.
The museum sourced its collection from Americans across the country. In an “Antiques Roadshow”-style project, people from 15 cities offered their heirlooms and “found” items to the collection. Among the objects donated were Harriet Tubman’s hymnal, Nat Turner’s bible, a member of the Harlem Hellfighters’ Croix de Guerre medal and Althea Gibson’s tennis racket.
The community-sourcing emphasized that African American history is not only about people who led the Civil Rights Movement and trailblazers who paved the way in countless fields, but also about the stories and experiences of all African Americans and their families.
Literature
Deborah Smith and Han Kang at the 2016 Man Booker Prize ceremony. Photo courtesy of the Man Booker Prize’s official Instagram
In 2016, Bob Dylan became the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for his lifelong contributions of “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Dylan’s poetic, timely lyricism in folk and blues traditions was monumental in 1960s counterculture movements and continues to hold significance today. The Literature award was also the first to go to an American since Toni Morrison’s recognition in 1993.
Dylan’s win redefined the precedent for what we consider literature, formally recognizing songwriting as a valuable form of storytelling. In his Nobel Prize Lecture, Dylan cited literary classics such as “Moby Dick,” “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Odyssey” as major influences on the themes of his own work. However, he added, “Songs are unlike literature. They’re meant to be sung, not read … I return once again to Homer, who says, ‘Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story.’”
The year saw another significant literary milestone when Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” won the International Booker Prize, marking the first time the award was given to a single book after the rules were changed. Kang’s novel, about a woman who wants to become a plant, was originally published in Korean in 2007. It was translated into English in 2015, bringing the text to a much wider audience and contributing to its popularity worldwide. “The Vegetarian” connected with readers over themes of patriarchy and conformity, remaining relevant years later.
While 2016 demonstrated the transcendent power of translated works with “The Vegetarian,” it also revealed cultural differences in how audiences reacted to certain issues. In October, Italian investigative journalist Claudio Gatti revealed records showing the identity of Elena Ferrante, the pseudonymous author of the “My Brilliant Friend” series, as Italian translator Anita Raja. Ferrante’s identity had long been a mystery, even as her bestselling Neapolitan novels published in Italian and English garnered widespread success.
The revelation generated intense backlash from Europeans who believed the investigation into Ferrante’s anonymity was an unacceptable invasion of privacy. In the U.S. and Britain, conversation focused on whether a male author would receive the same sensationalist media treatment. Gatti’s investigation ultimately raised questions about authors’ role in the public sphere, and the pressures writers often face to perform for publicity.
Digital culture in 2016
Photo courtesy of Pokémon Go’s official Instagram
As 2026 approached, social media users nostalgic for the internet of the past proposed the “Great Meme Reset,” a counter-effort against the AI-generated and “brainrot” content that dominates social media feeds today. While the internet wasn’t entirely innocent 10 years ago, 2016 marked one of the last years before digital culture became defined by oversaturated, meaningless content.
2016 was Snapchat’s year. Rarely was a selfie taken without one of the app’s filters superimposed on the user’s face. Among the most popular Snapchat filters were the “Dog” filter, which placed a dog’s nose and a pair of floppy ears on the user’s face, and the “Flower Crown,” which placed a garland of red flowers on the top of the user’s head.
To compete with Snapchat’s ephemeral content-sharing structure, Instagram launched its Stories feature, initially criticized by users for its lack of originality but now very commonly used.
People also lip-synced to viral songs on Musical.ly — Tiktok’s predecessor — and participated in trends like the mannequin challenge, which entailed people standing completely still for the camera.
Pokémon Go encouraged people around the world to venture outside and explore their communities. The app, which reimagined the popular 1990s game series, became a major cultural phenomenon across generations. Its influence was so strong during the summer of 2016 that it drove some distracted players to jump into traffic in attempts to “catch ‘em all,” inspiring the app to add speed restrictions and safety reminders.
Airpods
“AirPodsBerdaiOthmaneCA” by AppleBerdaiOthmaneCA. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
You might remember the negative reception Apple faced in 2016 when they first released AirPods. Social media users mocked the earbuds’ design and expressed concern about losing the small accessories. The product came shortly after Apple removed the headphone jack from their new phones, angering users who felt trapped into purchasing the new product.
However, memes that originally mocked AirPods’ high price point quickly allowed the earbuds to become a new status symbol. If you didn’t have AirPods, you were broke. The headphones populated the ears of high school students around the world, as their inconspicuous design lent itself to constant listening.
Even today, it seems that many people are always only half-present, with one AirPod in at all times. As the first truly wireless earbuds, AirPods fundamentally changed how we engage with music and the world around us.
Deaths
Photo courtesy of IMDb
2016 saw the deaths of actors, musicians and other pivotal public figures worldwide. Singer David Bowie died on Jan. 10, Prince died on April 21 and George Michael died on Dec. 25. All three were known for their innovative musical styles, with Bowie headlining Live Aid in 1985, Prince being remembered for his multi-instrument prowess and stage persona and Michael becoming known for his activism for LGBTQ+ and children’s rights.
Earth, Wind and Fire frontman Maurice White, who led a diverse band in many upbeat melodies, died on Feb. 4; Phife Dawg, who co-founded rap group A Tribe Called Quest, died on March 22. Leonard Cohen, the poet and songwriter who originally composed and recorded the anthem “Hallelujah,” died on Nov. 7, while Sharon Jones, the leader of soul group Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, died on Nov. 18.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Alan Rickman, who starred in the “Harry Potter” and “Die Hard” films, died on Jan. 14. Anton Yelchin of the later “Star Trek” movies died on June 19; Gene Wilder of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” died on Aug. 29 and Alan Thicke of the sitcom “Growing Pains” died on Dec. 13. “Star Wars” actress Carrie Fisher died on Dec. 27; her mother, Debbie Reynolds of “Singin’ in the Rain,” also died unexpectedly the following day.
Boxer and activist Muhammad Ali, considered the most legendary heavyweight boxer worldwide and the first to win the heavyweight championship thrice, died on June 3. Ali was known for his civil rights activism and was a conscientious objector in the Vietnam War, which temporarily cost him his boxing rights. Holocaust survivor, author and academic Elie Wiesel, whose memoir “Night” detailed his surviving the Holocaust, died on July 2. Wiesel taught at Boston University for almost 40 years and was the 1986 laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Riley Greenberg can be reached at [email protected]. Kalana Amarasekara can be reached at [email protected].
