As You Scroll, He / She Gets Older

About

As You Scroll, He / She Gets Older is a Twitter / X trend where users make threads consisting of images or photos of a subject gradually aging with each subsequent post in the thread. The trend began in May 2020, with the first few examples showing K-Pop stars aging, spreading to further subjects over the following years. Notably, in late April 2024, the Google Play X account participated in the trend with images of Sonic the Hedgehog, however, most images had an error in it regarding his age, inspiring viral criticism.

Origin

On May 20th, 2020, X^[1] user @squishjhs posted a thread consisting of photos of K-Pop star Jungkook aging with ever subsequent post in the thread, writing, "a thread of jungkook’s bunny smile but he gets older as you scroll 🦋," garnering around five likes in four years (partial thread shown below). This is the earliest known example of the trend.

Spread

The trend continued to spread and grow in popularity over the following years. For example, on May 24th, 2020, X^[2] user @secretmoments13 posted a version of the trend with Taylor Swift photos, garnering over 7,000 likes in four years (partial thread shown below, left).

On March 8th, 2024, X^[3] user @mimiminifingers posted a version of the thread with South Korean rapper Yoongi's photos, garnering over 27,000 likes in two months (partial thread shown below, right).

Google Play's "Sonic But He Gets Older" Post

On April 27th, 2024, the official @GooglePlay X^[4] account posted a version of the trend using images from various pieces of Sonic the Hedgehog media to show Sonic aging over the years, garnering over 5,200 likes in five days (shown below).

The post and all the individual posts in the thread were ultimately hit with an X community note that reads, "Sonic does not get older and older as you scroll. Every post in this thread is labelled incorrectly, and most of them are in the completely wrong order."

The post became the subject of criticism for its inaccuracies. On May 1st, TikToker^[5] @boofybaps posted a video going over the post and, in detail, explaining all the errors with it, hypothesizing that Google Play has replaced their social media employee with an AI, garnering over 630,000 views in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References