The idea is simple. Everyone on Tiktok, and Instagram, and Twitter, and…Tumblr? (No, no one’s used Tumblr since they got rid of the porn.) Okay, everyone on TikTok and Instagram and Twitter is doing it. You post two pictures of yourself: one taken several years ago (usually when you were a kid, or at the start of high school or college ) and one taken recently. You caption the post: “How it started vs. How it’s going.” You press upload. You wait for the responses.
The predictor of success is even simpler. The greater the positive change between the before and after, the better. You want the shock factor. The unexpected change. The glow up. People go wild over the scoliotic, brace-faced, acne-splattered, flat-chested waif that transforms — in one fell swipe — into the straight-backed, straight-teethed, clear-skinned, buxom temptress. Or the cross-eyed, rail-thin, sallow-skinned prepubescent mouth-breather that morphs — mirabile dictu — into the chiseled, nose-breathing postpubescent jock with a steady gaze. The best posts elicit a sacramental response from the crowd. All past physiognomic sins are forgiven before evidence of present beauty. No ugly soul is beyond salvation.
These are feel-good posts. They’ve got a feel-good message for everyone, even those currently suffering from non-beauty. Cheer up, depressed Internet stranger. You can turn your life around, too. You can be beautiful one day, too. The point is that we shouldn’t give up, no matter how bad it gets. Hope exists. Beauty redeems.
(Proprietary algorithms shunt the perpetually ugly, who might give lie to this message, into the bottomless depths of the online oblivion.)
The best part is that there’s no narrative attached. There’s no uplifting story, no trauma-filled overshare, no lame joke. There are just two pictures: me then, me now. And some subtext. Look at how ugly I was then and look at how not-ugly I am now. Deep down, we know that there were highs and lows in between. There were good days and bad days. The chiseled jock was once bullied for lisping. The smiling cheerleader once spent her lunch period crying in the school bathroom. Even the buxom temptress once had her bouts with insecurity and depression. She doesn’t have them now, obviously, but she once did.
Fortunately, we don’t have to think about any of these details. It’s easier (and more comforting) to think that these transformations really did occur in the swipe of a finger. We’d like to think that beauty comes easily to those who really, truly want it. This makes some sense if you think about it. Ugly person wakes up one day. Is tired of being ugly. Decides to really want beauty. Wakes up next day with desired beauty. The alternative story — that beauty is the unjustified, ever-waning prize of a select, random few — is decidedly not feel-good. We know our story is a fantasy, but it’s a comforting and harmless fantasy.
And after all, isn’t there a beauty in the context-free image, and an eloquence in the unwritten narrative? Isn’t there a joy to be found in resisting the urge to tell others about the events of your life? Isn’t there a peace to be found in presenting yourself as a static image, willing to be consumed by strangers on the Internet? Of course we know that every person has a story to tell. But isn’t the great misfortune of the early twenty-first century that we’ve allowed each and every one of them to tell it? Think about all the “space” we’ve had to “hold.” Think about all the finger-snapping we’ve had to do. Think about the “lived experiences” and the confessions and the slam poems. Think about the slam poems!
Now stop thinking. You’re sick of it. You want the chiseled abs and the pendulous breasts, the full lips and the bulging biceps. You want the one-swipe fantasy. You want the happy ending. You want the image, not the text.
And you deserve to get want you want.