About

Photos NASA Took On My Birthday refers to a trend where people share photos that NASA's Hubble telescope took on their exact date of birth. The government website that provides the information was created in early 2020, inspiring reactions on Twitter before anywhere else. However, the trend picked up in abundance on TikTok in early 2022, where the oversaturation of earnest content inspired TikTokers to share ironic iterations, showcasing photos that obviously weren't taken.

Origin

The earliest known NASA birthday photo that was shared online was posted by Twitter^[1] user M4RKBOY on March 31st, 2020. The tweet (shown below) did not receive any likes after being posted.

Of course, the tweet shown above used a feature on NASA's website^[2] called "What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday?" The generator was last updated on April 27th, 2020. It was created on March 31st, 2020.

Spread

Even though the discussion started on Twitter, it was on TikTok that NASA birthday photos took off in abundance. For instance, the first user on TikTok to post a video within the trend was TikToker^[3] smuelhan on May 21st, 2021. He posted a tutorial-style video on how to find your NASA birthday photo, earning roughly 88,700 plays and 1,900 likes for it over the course of seven months (shown below).

In early 2022, NASA birthday photos took off en masse inspired by Spanish-speaking TikTokers. The first to do so (in 2022) was TikToker^[4] .valeriah_ whose video was posted on January 22nd and gained roughly 8,200 plays and 1,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, left). Other Spanish-speaking TikTokers caught on, like TikToker^[5] cataa.cifuentes, whose video was posted on January 23rd and received roughly 2,100 plays in the same amount of time (shown below, right).

On January 30th, TikToker^[6] xrxwrxr posted her NASA birthday photos, earning roughly 32,400 plays and 3,200 likes in two weeks (shown below, left). On February 1st, the meme started trending heavily with videos within the trend reaching over 1 million plays. For instance, on February 1st, TikToker^[7] urfavhotgemini777 posted a video that received roughly 2.6 million plays and 440,400 likes over the course of six days (shown below, right).

Ironic iterations started to infiltrate the trend going into February caused by the oversaturation of the earnest content. For instance, on February 2nd, TikToker^[8] willuzi posted a video that received roughly 1.4 million plays and 306,200 likes in five days (shown below, left). Other users complained about their NASA photos not being as interesting as other people's, inspiring TikTokers to make fun of these complainers. For instance, on the 2nd, TikToker^[9] bfreestone15 posted a video that showed his NASA photo was just a picture of a glass of water on a Mars Bar candy bar, earning roughly 1.7 million plays and 646,500 likes in five days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References