Even if you’re terrified of aging, you’ve got to admit watching other people get older is fascinating. Not at the speed of regular time, mind you – you’d be old yourself by the time you saw any real progress. But there’s a certain thrill in stumbling upon a video of your mom on her wedding day or a photo of your grandma as a teenager and comparing their earlier appearances to how they look now.

Watching total strangers get older may be slightly less nifty – it lacks the excitement of using your relatives’ change in appearance as a mirror into your own future – but it’s still super neat to see which parts of a person change and which stay the same as they age. Look:

 

(I’m not entirely convinced that last one isn’t just a picture of the same man, at the same age, first with and then without a beard.)

These GIFs remind me of Ze Frank’s “Young Me, Now Me” photo project as well as the Copco Lake photos, both of which you can check out here.