It’s the start of a glorious new year*, and there’s a social media trend doing the rounds built around the idea that 2026 is the new 2016.

It isn’t. But that hasn’t stopped people posting photos of themselves from ten years ago – grainy selfies, early Snapchat detritus, mid-2010s aesthetics retrieved from the cloud. Celebrities have joined in, as they reliably do. It’s a nostalgia meme, loosely framed as a yearning for a simpler, pre-pandemic time. And it’s everywhere.

My 2016 photo library is well worth exploring. That was the year I went to a gig every single week, caught the travel bug, and worked frequently in New York, where I frequently made a nuisance of myself.

As for 2026, well, it’s January 23rd and so far I’ve taken three photos: one of myself with a pair of children’s pyjamas on my head, and two pictures of a small and slightly underwhelming snowman we built in the back garden.

This isn’t an aberration. These days, most months are reliably dull and uneventful.

Now, I still think of myself as an attention-worthy individual. But it’s clear that there’s trouble brewing. My enemy is not boredom, it is Boring itself.

I am at war with Boring, although I’m fully aware that Boring will ultimately prevail. Unless Death takes me first.

Back in the peacetime of my youth it was impossible to think that a war such as this might ever need waging. I was one of the interesting people. We led interesting lives, held interesting conversations and wrestled our way through interesting arguments. Our interests were interesting, and our disinterests were the subject of scorn and mockery, so unforeseeable was it that we might ever fall under their influence.

There were always boring people, of course. But we generally just left them to their own devices. They were certainly not a threat, except in the unhappy event that we ended up being seated next to them at dinner parties. Besides, there was a simple solution to this problem, and that was to avoid dinner parties.

How different things look now that the unforeseeable has come to pass. Now that Boring is at my door. My nondescript, suburban homeowner’s door. We have a Ring doorbell. That tells you everything you need to know.

I can see that once Boring takes hold, there is no going back. I’ve already experienced first-hand the horror of watching it subsume the personality of several loved ones. And I know that it’s coming for me.

Of course, I’m not alone in wishing to avoid Boring. Few people wish to submit to its dreary will. It’s just something that happens. We let our guard down and, before we know it, we’ve become the sort of person that we would formerly have crossed the street, boarded up our windows or shot ourselves in the spleen to avoid.

That’s why I must remain on red alert, avoiding boring people and boring situations like the plague. For you see, it starts when one becomes locked in dialogue with boring people saying boring things. And at this precarious point in my life, these people are everywhere. Boring has mutated, it has grown exponentially, and it surrounds me.

So I fight on, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before I give in, and start returning boring conversation with boring anecdotes of my own, even though I know that what I’m saying is of no interest or value to anyone. From then on, things will quickly descend to the point at which my boring remarks, observations and interjections no longer seem boring. And then Boring has won.

*Unless you live in Greenland.

Photo by Sepp Rutz on Unsplash