About

What Celebs Would Look Like Without Fame and Wealth Trend, also known as Celebrities As Normal People Trend, refers to several photoshops and edited photos showing celebrities in normal-life situations and aesthetics to portray them as if they weren't famous and rich. Photoshopped images of celebrities as normal people have been around in the internet since early 2006, however, the images gained traction and virality in mid-May 2025 on TikTok, Instagram and Reddit with AI-generated videos and images depicting the famous personalities in "average life" situations.

Origin

Precursor

According to an article posted by The Next Web^[1] website on September 21st, 2013, Artist Danny Evans has been uploading pictures of celebrities onto random "everyday setting" pictures to "illustrate how photoshopped most celebrity photography is" (seen below).

On August 20th, 2022, the Facebook^[2] page @CreativeIdeass uploaded a collection of photoshopped images, titled "What Celebrities Would Look Like If They Weren’t Rich And Famous," becoming one of the earliest online mentions of the trend (pre-AI). The post (seen below) received more than 1,800 likes and 500 shares in three years.

2025 AI Trend

On May 20th, 2025, TikTok^[3] user @rrhester posted the earliest known version of the celebrities without fame and wealth trend, using an AI-generated image of actors Tom Holland and Zendaya (seen below), which received roughly 12,000 plays and 310 likes in a day.

Spread

As the trend began spreading, versions of several AI images of celebrities without fame and wealth appeared on TikTok, Instagram and Reddit, in late May 2025, as users often posted slideshows with their AI-created photos.

For instance, on May 21st, 2025, the Instagram^[4] account and meme page @shitheadsteve posted an AI-generated image of actress Blake Lively and actor Ryan Reynolds with the overlay text, "This is what AI thinks Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively would look like without wealth and fame." The post (seen below) received more than 52,000 likes in a few hours.

On January 4th, 2025, Redditor u/InGeekiTrust posted a mix of photoshopped and AI-generated images depicting celebrities without wealth and fame (seen below) to the /r/TikTokCringe^[5] subreddit, which received roughly 640 upvotes and 100 comments in five months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References