A now-viral TikTok filter inadvertently inspires a new perspective on aging.

Imagine your face in a few decades. Perhaps you have crow’s feet and pronounced bags under your eyes. Your hair may have turned gray. You probably have dark spots and hyperpigmentation. We are taught to be afraid of this inevitable transformation. What if we adopt him instead?

RELATED: Don’t women have the right to grow old?

On TikTok, the “Aging” filter – which has more than 10 billion views on the app – uses artificial intelligence to predict what you might look like in the future, showing users sagging cheeks, thin lips, fine lines and even yellowed teeth. And over the past week, the effect has become an agent of digital mayhem.

At first, the filter triggered a sort of collective existential crisis. He inspired panic-inducing, escalated sunscreen applications emphasizes skin care regimens, and tips on how to “age as gracefully as possible.” It’s even prompted therapists to give advice on alleviating aging-related anxiety. This shock factor was most likely intentional. Age-related filters still work well on TikTok, and it’s easy to see why.

Earlier this year, the “Teenage Look” filter went viral on the app. Unlike “aging,” the effect smoothes fine lines, softens skin tone, and shows people a simulated version of themselves in high school. But even that trend has sparked similar terror, with users pointing out how nostalgia for the filter has made them more aware of their own mortality. The two filters – although seemingly opposed to each other – exemplify our fear-fueled obsession with marking our age, whether we look back or forward. The impacts go beyond the internet, as plastic surgeons have reported an increase in patients asking to look like filtered selfies.

No matter which artificially enhanced version of yourself is thrown back at you, TikTok filters are always a little jarring. So when we engage with them, it’s usually helpful to remember that they’re not real. But the “aging” filter — which has been dermatologist-approved for its accuracy — presents a new kind of challenge, because it’s not that far-fetched.

Unsurprisingly, the TikTok aging filter revealed a knee-jerk reaction of horror, with users like Kylie Jenner expressing their disgust at a look on their face with significantly less collagen. (She later wrote “she’s cute” in the comments.)

At the same time, a feeling of appreciation emerged. Hailey Bieber and Mia Khalifa noted similarities to their grandmothers. A smiling Amy Poehler got on the trend with the short but punchy caption, “May I be so lucky.” Users lovingly note how much they look like the older women in their lives. There have been makeup tutorials with the filter on. Some have even positioned her as a version of themselves to aspire to, with one user writing, “I can’t wait to meet her.”

Over the past few days, my feed has shifted to people embracing their older digital selves. Scattered between fashion micro-trend posts or videos on the Barbie press tour are visual odes to aging, with the buzzy filter as prompt. In some ways, the very image of getting older has become a trend in its own right.

More and more, it seems we are in a period of aging dichotomy, where aging is embraced on a performative, but not always authentic, level. Julia Fox may declare that “aging is fully integrated”, while Kim Kardashian shamelessly says that she would “eat poop” to look young. We praise Martha Stewart for her youthful glow in a swimsuit photoshoot while ridiculing Madonna for her obvious cosmetic procedures. Women over 45 are gaining more recognition in Hollywood, while stars of And just like that… continue to face endless criticism over their appearances.

In 2023, the discourse on anti-aging has not disappeared; it just reinvented itself in a sneakier way. Take the idea of ​​aging gracefully. “What makes ‘aging gracefully’ a particularly detrimental euphemism for anti-aging is that it implies that anti-aging should appear to be effortless,” beauty writer Jessica DeFino explains in her newsletter. The unpublishable. ‘Aging gracefully’ is not effortless, however – it takes an incredible amount of effort, and then even more effort to remove the evidence of that effort.” The prevailing idea is still that there is a LAW way to grow old. But the virality of the Aging filter, which focuses on so-called blemishes, inadvertently calls this into question.

If nothing else, it provides algorithmic visibility into aging. (I, for one, have never seen so many celebrities age at once.) Ageist beauty standards probably aren’t going away any time soon. But perhaps the aging TikTok filter, with its inevitable integration of what we’ll look like years later, can be a start. And even if our recognition of aging goes through a filter, it seems quite radical.