Whenever we visit grandpa’s house, he loves to sit us down on his plastic-covered couch, dust off the old photo album, and walk us frame by frame down the memory lane of his life. Amazing that grandpa can fit all gazillion years of his existence into one tidy book. And it got us thinking, what will photo albums of our lives look like in 50 years when we’re gazillion? So we “borrowed” grandpa’s special photo album to use as a reference guide and had a snapshot showdown. Witness the ultimate face-off between today’s old people versus the photo albums of the future.
Photo: Westend61 (Getty Images)
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photo albums
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Memories vs. Food
Grandpa's photos come with incredible stories full of detailed remembrances. Our photos are a bunch of pictures of food we once ate taken from 10 slightly different angles. That was some good chicken and waffles though. #chickenandwaffles
Winner: Us
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Old vs. Young
Old people's photo albums show a progression of their life, complete with aging. Our photos are all photoshopped to perfection and (when scientists bottle a youth serum) will include an eternally young version of us with white teeth and perfect skin who is moments away from heart failure.
Winner: Us
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Book vs. Cloud
Today, albums have a max of 60 pictures. In the future, albums will have a minimum of 6,000 pictures, which we will never scroll through because our cloud storage service will charge us every time we want to look at our own pictures.
Winner: Them
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Real Faces vs. Avatars
Real pictures of grandpa growing up and getting married are so boring. We'll have cute avatars saying funny phrases and getting into mischief to keep things entertaining.
Winner: Us
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Sentimental vs. Monumental
Old people seem to trot out the old photo albums regularly, finding joy in reminiscing about old times. By the time we reach that age, we won't even know what a photo album is. We'll be too busy living in the moment.
Winner: Us
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Footnotes vs. Masterpieces
Every other page, grandpa has a note scribbled underneath the pictures that give them some context, like "Gout in both feet." Our photo albums will have one-line thought poems that encapsulate all of human existence.
Winner: Us
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Candid Moments vs. Selfies
Like, 99 percent of grandpa's album has a separation between photographer and subject, with almost no pouty faces (or tongues). In total contrast, our album is 99 percent selfies of us looking fierce.
Winner: Us
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2D vs. 4D
Like infantile stick figures, old people today still operate in two dimensions. Fifty years from now, our photo albums will be virtual worlds we can immerse ourselves in, activating a loophole in the space/time continuum in which we can travel back in time to live among the archive of our memories. That's what gramps just doesn't seem to understand. We photograph all our brunches and keep only the best nude selfies, so we can revisit those meals again and again without gaining a pound.
Winner: Us
