Social media is travelling back four decades as an AI-generated 1980s photo trend fills timelines with big hairstyles, aviator sunglasses, vibrant clothes, film grain and faded vintage tones.
The trend has gathered momentum in early September, with users uploading present-day photographs to AI tools such as ChatGPT and asking to be reimagined in the visual style of the 1980s while retaining their facial features.
What began with ordinary users and politicians has now reached Bollywood.
Actors Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra joined the trend on Wednesday, with Kiara sharing an AI-created portrait of the couple styled as a classic 1980s Bollywood pairing. She captioned the post, “Back to the 80’s.”
The image gives Sidharth an old-school Hindi film hero appearance, while Kiara is presented in brightly coloured retro styling reminiscent of the decade’s mainstream cinema.
The trend has also spread rapidly through political circles.
Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Kiren Rijiju, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and other public figures have shared AI-created vintage avatars. Goyal’s transformation even prompted social-media users to joke about a possible Bollywood debut.
Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury, meanwhile, offered a more authentic version of the nostalgia by sharing an actual photograph from her younger years rather than an AI recreation.
The format has become popular because of the dramatic transformation AI can produce while keeping the person's identity recognisable. Users can recreate everything from old studio portraits and magazine covers to Bollywood-inspired looks with oversized hair, bold clothing and analogue-style photography.
The craze is already expanding beyond the 1980s. AI users are increasingly experimenting with 1990s Bollywood, Y2K and early-2000s aesthetics, suggesting that the wider retro-photo phenomenon may last longer than a single viral trend.
For now, though, the decade dominating Indian social media is unmistakable: the ’80s are back — this time powered by AI
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