Ten years ago, we ordered food over the phone, rented DVDs from video stores, stood in long queues to buy movie tickets, and actually rang up people on their birthdays. Tom Cruise did not have those annoying bangs, burgers were not served in the White House, and nobody knew what a selfie stick was.
The world has changed a lot, and now, we are witnessing the first viral trend of 2019—the 10-year challenge, in which people, mostly celebrities, post on social media pictures of themselves 10 years ago and now. It is amazing how little some of them, like Reese Witherspoon, Isla Fisher, and a score of others, have changed. While the rest of us ordinary mortals grapple with stretch marks and sagging body parts, they look not a millisecond older than they did in 2009. Kate Hudson got a buzz cut, Caitlyn Jenner changed gender, Ryan Seacrest turned into a stud, and Sarah Hyland apparently stopped wearing a bra.
Closer home, Sonam Kapoor, Diana Penty, Dia Mirza and Bipasha Basu have joined the bandwagon. “High on hair dye but still resisting botox,” Karan Johar captioned his BEFORE and AFTER pictures. He seems to be aging in reverse, as the 2009 greys have disappeared in 2019. Rajkummar Rao, who was only taking baby steps in acting 10 years ago, had a sweet caption for his geeky to steamy transformation: “Still happy; still at it; still learning to act”.
It was fun for a while, especially to see celebrities taking digs at themselves. Like tennis heartthrob Novak Djokovic who posted near-identical pictures of himself in briefs, posing on the runway 10 years ago and jogging next to his brother now. “Modelling versus losing a bet to your brother,” he captioned them.
Then came the backlash. The media started describing the fad as “inherent narcissism”, and about how celebrities were looking to “brag about their looks”. But the biggest criticism was directed at Facebook, when it was alleged that the social media giant was encouraging the trend to improve its facial recognition algorithms.
And then the trend mutated into a more serious version, when people used it to highlight social and global issues like climate change and war. Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi posted images of her fight for human rights in her country 10 years ago and now. Trans filmmaker Fox Fisher used it to highlight LGBTQ issues. It began to be employed as a tool by global leaders like Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to mock his nemesis, the US National Security Adviser John Bolton. He tweeted two articles in 2009 and 2019, in which Bolton called for strikes on Iran. “Same bull, same bully, same delusion,” wrote Zarif.
So, will the 10-year challenge really rock the world like #MeToo did? It remains to be seen but, unlike #MeToo, this one did start as rather pointless and egotistic. But then, so did President Donald Trump. And look where he is now.
