Twitter, for the most part, is a hellscape of hatefire – so we should all take genuine solace in the moments, rare as they are, when Twitter does something adorable that will make your heart feel better as with the hashtag #5yearoldselfie.
It was started by the UK mental health charity Young Minds as bit of a deliberate dose of positivity, and the outpouring from folks on the Tweet-platform are a joy to behold.
And the internet responded with alacrity.
The overwhelming message was to stop worrying so much about other people’s opinions and to trust that things were going to improve, but the joy of it is how incredibly relatable the photos and responses are.
Some are inspirational:
…some are charming…
…and some are just heartbreaking.
In any case, it’s a great reminder to all of us to be a bit kinder to ourselves, and that the five year old kid we were isn’t really all that far away. And who wouldn’t want to give their younger self a hug and some sage advice?
At least, let’s all enjoy the #5yearoldselfie hasgtag until we discover that Twitter are actually using it some data-scraping exercise to train AI to successfully age photographs for identification purposes GODDAMMIT CAN’T ANYTHING JUST BE GOOD AND PURE ANY MORE?