Viral Twitter Challenge Looks Back to Innocent 'Before Times' of Early 2020 (2024)

A new viral Twitter challenge has asked people to post images of themselves from early 2020 in the "before times" that preceded the global COVID-19 pandemic. The results are both sweet and, at times, touching.

The challenge tells Twitter users, "Post a photo of yourself in early 2020 not knowing what was coming." That is, before global lockdowns, travel restrictions, mask-wearing mandates, mass furloughs, shelter-in-place orders and vaccine boosters changed life as we know it.

Fred Wellman—a senior advisor with The Lincoln Project, a political action committee of Republicans who oppose former Republican President Donald Trump—posted an image of themselves smiling alongside a young woman.

Twitter user @kweeos posted an image of themselves seated next to a black dog. She wrote, "Didn't know my beautiful Lila would be gone in four months and my Doc husband would be aged ten years taking care of so many Covid patients."

@coffeeshopjihad posted an image of herself maskless in a store aisle, holding one of many stuffed animals decorated for Valentine's Day.

@Winemovienerd posted an image of himself and three associates using the Zoom videoconferencing app. He wrote, "This is right at the start of the pandemic when Zoom was still fun and before the stroke."

@daisyfvllers wrote, "I was at a random party, without a mask/ the thought 'oh no covid' and I can't even imagine wtf that sh*t was like anymore."

@Piano82666315 wrote, "Taking my first (semi-headshot) for going college in person Little did I know Still a great picture though."

@katfacchini posted an image of herself preparing to work at NBC studios in Manhattan, New York City, the city that was initially hit hardest by the coronavirus.

"LOL we were sent home indefinitely after this," she wrote.

@Nic0tineJunkie posted a picture of themselves alongside a room of other filmmakers who were set to attend the Daang Dokyu Philippine documentary film festival.

"Meeting with docu filmmakers before the opening of Daang Dokyu (which was of course postponed). We were all so excited," they wrote.

@mattolwell, a student of dance, posted an image of himself from January 28, 2020, practicing in tap shoes at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"In the studio working on my MFA thesis project," he wrote. "I remember thinking that things felt hard, to which the world responded, 'Hold my beer.'"

@andywilkins24 hit on a common theme of people gaining "pandemic weight." He posted an image of himself next to a mannequin and captioned it, "When I was a lot slimmer and had a half decent body on me. Need to start cutting the weight down to get back to it sooner than later now."

@RachelPologe's contribution mentioned one of the many unfortunate consequences of the pandemic.

"In February 2020 I was pretty sick and landed in the hospital," her post begins. "Didn't know how lucky my timing was that I was able to get all the medical care I needed in Feb/early March before the shutdown."

@idiousunderdog posted an image of himself and wrote, "So yeah this was the last time I saw my partner before covid. We've been LDR for a while now".

@mirandaburgin struck a profound tone by quoting Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Go to the Limits of Your Longing."

The quoted line reads, "Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final. / Don't let yourself lose me."