About

Do You Think This Guy Had a Glow Up or a Glow Down? refers to a street interview question prevalent on TikTok in which the host shows a person's photo to a stranger and asks if the person likely had a "glow up" or a "glow down," as in, are they more attractive or less attractive in the present day. Once given an answer, the person in the photograph reveals themself in real life. The trend started in late 2022 and gained parodies in 2023, ultimately leading to a parody video posted by TikToker Torrell Tafa (@torrelltafa) in May 2023 in which his heavy-set Asian friend revealed himself. The TikToker's video then became an exploitable CapCut template on the platform in which creators inserted different photos over the original.

Origin

On January 14th, 2023, TikToker^[1] @themindsetguyy posted the first discovered video to use the "Did This Person Have A Glow Up or Glow Down?" street interview format, gaining roughly 77,300 plays and 3,800 likes in four months (shown below, left). The format became a recurring theme on @themindsetguyy's channel going into 2023. For instance, he uploaded a similar TikTok^[2] on March 5th, 2023, that gained roughly 18.5 million plays and 3.4 million likes in two months (shown below, right).

The virality of the street interview genre eventually led to TikToker^[3] @torrelltafa uploading a video on May 14th, 2023, that followed the same format in which he asked a woman on the street if the blonde boy photographed had had a glow up or a glow down. After she guessed "glow up," he brought out his heavy-set friend as an absurd joke. Over the course of 17 days, the video gained roughly 26.7 million plays and 3.6 million likes (shown below).

Spread

In the days that followed, meme creators started to re-edit @torrelltafa's TikTok^[3] by replacing the blonde boy photo with different images and characters. The trend started on May 25th, 2023, when CapCut^[4] user @smxy_david made a template called the "Lying Dog Meme 👀🤫" that used the Side Eye Dog in conjunction with @torrelltafa's TikTok.^[3]

On May 30th, TikToker^[5] @idontknow69424 used the template, gaining roughly 1.3 million plays and 137,700 likes in one day (shown below, left). More iterations soon followed, such as one video posted by TikToker^[6] @ka1den.2 on May 31st, that showed Destroy Lonely, gaining roughly 527,700 plays and 75,100 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

By May 31st, 2023, the CapCut^[4] template had amassed roughly 84,600 uses on TikTok.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References