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The unsettling clip was a July 2024 AI-assisted video built from Dutch artist Ard Gelinck’s celebrity “then and now” portraits. The original images were Photoshop composites showing famous people beside younger versions of themselves; the later video added synthetic movement, turning a polished still-image illusion into an awkward, physically impossible embrace.
The “everyone hates it” framing was exaggerated. Coverage documented plenty of mocking and disgusted reactions, but no poll or representative study established a universal response.
What video is this?
The clip shows celebrities appearing to hug, pose with, or interact with younger versions of themselves. It was not a film, official celebrity collaboration, or recorded reunion. It was a digitally fabricated compilation based on existing celebrity portrait composites.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThe video was discussed in a Futurism article published on July 20, 2024, which referred to an Ard Gelinck post dated July 17, 2024. It is therefore best understood as a dated viral-internet story, not a new event.
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Ard Gelinck’s original work was Photoshop art
Gelinck is a Dutch graphic designer and Photoshop artist known for combining archival celebrity photographs with newer images. His “then and now” portraits place a younger celebrity beside an older version, usually matching scale, lighting, color and perspective so the result looks like a carefully staged photograph.
Earlier coverage by My Modern Met describes the work as a manual combination of existing photographs. Examples associated with the series include Will Smith, Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez and Amy Winehouse.
Those still images could be sentimental or playful because a frozen frame hides many imperfections. A hand can be slightly misaligned, a shoulder can have an unusual edge, or two bodies can fail to meet perfectly without the viewer immediately noticing.
What AI changed
The later project applied AI-assisted animation to the still composites. That is an important distinction: the available reporting does not support the claim that AI generated the entire project from scratch.
According to Gelinck’s own referenced X post, he said he created 17 of 20 images and that AI completed the remaining portion of the work. That is the artist’s description, not an independently audited production log.
The evidence supports a hybrid workflow involving:
- Existing Photoshop composites and source photographs.
- Human-created image arrangements.
- AI-generated or AI-assisted movement.
- Editing into a short video compilation.
The exact model, animation software, prompts, frame-generation method and amount of manual correction have not been identified in the available coverage. It is also not established whether the process used image-to-video generation, frame interpolation or another technique.
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Which celebrities appear?
Coverage specifically discusses several recognizable examples:
- Emma Watson: shown beside a younger version associated with her Hermione Granger era.
- Will Smith: paired with a younger version linked to his Fresh Prince period.
- Michael Jackson: represented in one reported image by three life stages—a later-life version, a version from his peak pop career and a child version associated with the Jackson Five.
These are documented examples, not a verified complete cast list for the entire compilation. The available sources do not establish the exact number of clips or every celebrity shown.
Why did it look so creepy?
The discomfort was not simply that “AI is bad.” The animation placed a demanding physical interaction on top of images that were designed to work as still photographs. Movement exposed weaknesses that a single frame could conceal.
1. The embrace has to obey anatomy
Hugs require convincing contact between hands, arms, shoulders and torsos. Synthetic movement can make a hand slide through a body, attach to the wrong arm, or appear disconnected from the person it belongs to. Small errors become obvious when the figures move together.
2. Faces and identities can drift
Generative animation may subtly alter facial features from frame to frame. In a video involving two ages of the same person, that instability is especially noticeable: the younger face can become older, the adult face can change shape, or the two identities can begin to blur.
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The source portraits may look like real photographs, but the movement can behave like an imitation of human motion. This mismatch produces a familiar AI-video problem: the image looks plausible when paused, while the sequence becomes visibly artificial in motion.
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4. The premise is emotionally strange
Meeting your younger self is an immediately understandable sentimental idea in a still image. But when an adult and child version occupy the same physical space and move as if they are embracing, the concept can feel like a time-travel scene without a believable physical world around it.
5. Famous faces make errors easier to spot
Viewers have strong visual expectations for celebrities they recognize. They know the general appearance and mannerisms of Emma Watson, Will Smith or Michael Jackson, so distorted movement can be more unsettling than the same error in an unknown person.
These are visual and interpretive explanations, not the findings of a formal psychological study. The available reporting records reactions but does not measure why every viewer responded as they did.
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No. “Everyone hates” was headline-style hyperbole, not a verified consensus.
Some commenters described the clip as “cursed,” awkward or creepy. The reactions cited in coverage include a post calling it “the most cursed thing on the internet” and another objecting to the awkwardness of the premise. Those posts demonstrate that the video attracted strong negative reactions, but they do not quantify the audience or represent every viewer.
Gelinck’s own response complicates the story further. He reportedly described the result as frightening while also expressing fascination and excitement about what AI could do. That does not amount to an admission that the project was a failure; it suggests that he recognized its uncanny quality and remained interested in the experiment.
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Are the celebrities actually hugging themselves?
No. The apparent hugs are synthetic visual constructions based on manipulated photographs and generated motion. There is no indication in the available coverage that the celebrities participated in or performed the interactions.
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It is more accurate to call the clip an AI-assisted animation, synthetic video or animated photo composite. Calling it a “deepfake” without qualification could wrongly suggest a deceptive impersonation intended to make a celebrity appear to say or do something real. The clip was presented as an artificial artwork or visual experiment, not as documentary footage.
What remains unknown?
- The exact AI model and animation software.
- The specific prompts and generation settings.
- Whether the motion was produced through image-to-video generation, interpolation or another workflow.
- The full list of celebrities and the exact number of clips.
- How much manual correction was applied after generation.
- Whether any celebrities, representatives or rights holders approved or participated in the project.
- The video’s verified view count or the size of its total audience.
The absence of documented participation does not, by itself, establish a legal violation. Questions about publicity rights, copyright, consent and artistic use depend on the jurisdiction, the source material and how the video was distributed.
How to judge the clip fairly
The video is most revealing when assessed as an experiment in moving still-image art:
| Criterion | Question |
|---|---|
| Visual coherence | Do faces, hands and bodies remain stable from frame to frame? |
| Physical plausibility | Does the embrace preserve believable anatomy and contact? |
| Identity fidelity | Do the older and younger versions remain recognizable? |
| Artistic intent | Is the uncanny quality deliberate, accidental or part of the experiment? |
By those standards, the project illustrates a central trade-off in generative media. AI can add motion quickly, but motion demands consistency across many frames. A human artist can carefully control a single composite; an animation system must preserve anatomy, identity, depth and contact while everything changes over time.
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The real point of the viral reaction
Gelinck’s original portraits worked because they controlled a single moment. The AI version exposed what happens when that controlled illusion is forced to move. The result was not a real celebrity reunion and not necessarily a fully AI-made artwork. It was a hybrid experiment that turned a warm “then and now” concept into an uncanny encounter with unstable faces, unreliable limbs and impossible physical contact.
That is why the clip attracted such a strong response—and why “everyone hated it” says more about the headline’s tone than about any measured public consensus.
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