This may be the first social media trend of 2019. Have you taken it yet—the “How Hard Did Aging Hit You?” challenge?

Since yesterday, all across my Facebook feed are posts with split-screens showing then versus now shots. The rules of the “game,” if you will, are to upload your first-ever profile pic from your social media account and then your most recent profile pic nestled next to it.

Some of the posts are typical thens and nows, but some, I have to say, are really stunning. A lot—and I mean a lot—of the posts that I have been perusing show friends and acquaintances who look better, way better than the “before” or decade-old shot.  

Having Fun … Looking Good

The author’s challenge submission! Kim’s only getting better with age.

Others are hilarious commentaries on the concept: There’s the quite extreme one of a sperm as then and skeleton as now. Then there are comments from those wondering if whoever thought up this game was “demented or a plastic surgeon looking for work.” (That remark came from a friend who looks fantastic in both her then and now shots, by the way.)

A lot of the posts show friends and acquaintances who look better, way better than the ‘before.’

Some wonder whether this stunt is a way for the tech giants to boost their facial recognition data banks, possibly with a dark conspiratorial principle at work behind the whole thing. Regardless, the trend is spreading to Twitter and Instagram … and it’s expanding from humans to include four-legged furry friends.

Honestly, it got me thinking about how far any of us come in a decade’s time. I’ve gone from a total hot mess who was at least 75 pounds overweight, nearly killing myself with drink and drugs, incapable of clarity of mind and soul, to a sober, healthy yoga instructor hotly pursuing my many other passions in life. I’m not perfect, but the HHDAHY challenge shows a person’s 10 years of  progress. And that’s not a bad thing.

So, me? I’m gonna go with this year’s first social challenge, post my silly then and mature now profile pictures and hope that all my comments speak to how I’m aging boldly … or not at all.