After Democrats celebrated victories in Republican strongholds including Texas and Kansas in the 2026 midterms, social media users turned to familiar symbols of the Obama years. Hamilton clips, the song “We Are Young,” jokes and “blue tsunami” memes helped fuel a question: was millennial optimism back?
The phrase had been circulating on TikTok for months. Over the past year, users have shared photos and videos evoking the late 2000s and early 2010s, including Photo Booth selfies, mustache accessories, statement necklaces and flower crowns. Many clips use “Blood,” a song by The Middle East released in 2009.
For younger people, the trend is about more than the era’s fashion and music. It also recalls a hopeful outlook associated with promises of change during the Obama years and an internet remembered as more personal and less shaped by algorithms. Some Gen Z users have described feeling nostalgic for a future they were too young to experience as adults at the time.
The midterm results gave that nostalgia a new political dimension for some users. People celebrating the outcome posted about listening to music associated with the period and feeling optimism return. One Austin post-election celebration video featuring “We Are Young” drew a response calling the mood “millennial optimism” at an extraordinary level. Google searches for the phrase also rose sharply, increasing 5,000 percent, according to the source report.
Other users joked about bringing back the Hamilton soundtrack and BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed joined the conversation with a post about changing its color scheme to blue.
The period being remembered was not uniformly hopeful: millennials also faced the aftermath of the financial crisis, student debt and an uncertain job market. But for those celebrating the election results, the nostalgia reflects a renewed sense that political participation can help move things forward. What follows, the report notes, will depend on whether that energy lasts beyond election night.
Sources: Mashable.