Our top 10 viral moments of the year so far, from Jimothy to 2016 lore

From AI videos of fruits as reality show contestants to the looksmaxxing influencer Clavicular getting a taste of his own medicine, a lot has happened on the internet this year. Here’s a list breaking down some of our favorite trends and discourses so far.

At the start of this year, “2026 is the new 2016” became an inescapable trend. People were sharing photos of themselves wearing galaxy-print clothes and using harsh Instagram filters from the app's early days. Some posted videos of themselves doing the old "Mannequin Challenge." And many just reminisced about a simpler time, when Tumblr was the social media platform of choice. Reportedly, 55 million videos using TikTok's "2016" filter were created in the first week of January.

In January, netizens were shocked to find that many men were watching a virtual peanut dance, play video games and tell poor jokes on a livestream every day. His name is TheBurntPeanut, and he ascended to become the number-one most-watched streamer on Twitch that month, rising to 11.3 million hours viewed in January: a 29 percent increase from Dec. 2025. Many were wondering, who’s watching this? And then women started filming their boyfriends and husbands spending their free time…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/entertainment/