#10yearchallenge - What Are People Really Trying To Glow Up?

The #10yearchallenge might be turning the silver wave gold, but what are people really trying to glow up?

- Valerie Wong

It feels like squealing teenage girls are only just regaining their voices after the hyped release of Bieber’s My World EP, and our facial muscles are finally relaxing after Kanye’s cringe-worthy microphone hijack. Alas, it has since been a decade. Social memory can be a little choppy and fuddled at times. Tears have dried, and scars have healed, sort of (Bieber is married while West and Swift are still feuding periodically). We may be no strangers to the notion of how time flies, yet people on the Internet always seem to find new ways to remind ourselves of that.

Social media feeds have recently been inundated with selfie collages of folks ageing within ten years, captioned intuitively with the #10yearchallenge hashtag. While rolling one’s eyes might be a natural response, the standard operating procedure to deal with public displays of self-love (or narcissism) is to politely engage in casual gawking within the comments section, preferably peppered with heart-eyed and fire emojis. After all, love thy neighbour as thyself.