AAA<\/p>\n
I\u2019m turning 40 in 304 days (not that I\u2019m counting), and while many women my age are quietly pricing Botox treatments, I\u2019ve spent a genuinely alarming amount of time feeding selfies into AI to see what I\u2019ll look like at 80. Just me, my laptop, and a face that\u2019s seen it all and is mildly disappointed in my children\u2019s life choices. (By then they\u2019ll be middle-aged. I\u2019m really fun at parties, I promise.)<\/p>\n
Anyway, imagine my unhinged delight when 32-year-old rapper Bad Bunny<\/a> rocked up to the Met Gala as if he\u2019d stepped out of my AI prompt \u2013 a silver fox on the waiting list for hip replacement surgery, in a look he said \u201ctook 53 years to prepare\u201d. While other celebrities were beating the \u201cbeauty is youth\u201d drum with Olympic-level intensity, including what looked suspiciously like Kendall Jenner\u2019s massive wardrobe malfunction, Bad Bunny\u2019s interpretation on the Gala\u2019s theme \u201cFashion is Art\u201d was a balm to my midlife soul.<\/p>\n Most people might find an AI-generated picture of their elderly selves terrifying, on par with unexpectedly flicking your phone\u2019s camera to selfie mode \u2013 like my brother, who on receipt of his own geriatric portrait quipped with characteristic jollity: \u201cHopefully we\u2019ll all be nuked by then.\u201d<\/p>\n But I love my elderly visage. Here\u2019s a face that\u2019s seen it all: raised teenagers, survived a million WhatsApp groups, loved hard, worried hard and earned the dignity of someone who\u2019s had a hysterectomy. My elder selfie is a doppelganger of my mum, who has aged well. Credit where credit is due: thanks for the genetic lottery win, Mum.<\/p>\n But Bad Bunny isn\u2019t the first to make gravity great again. There\u2019s been a slew of gloriously ageing models gracing the swanky catwalks<\/a> lately. Chanel, Bottega Veneta, Tom Ford, and Givenchy have all been yanking \u201celderly\u201d (in the fashion world, anyone over 30, God help us all) models out of back catalogues and sending them Zimmer frame-ing down the catwalk. Not to mention Anna Wintour and Meryl Streep turning up on the cover of Vogue in honour of The Devil Wears Prada 2. Can anyone say \u201ccross-promotion\u201d?<\/p>\n Still, progress is progress, and I\u2019m thrilled it\u2019s arriving as I wade into my full-blown to-Botox-or-not-to-Botox era. As Vanessa Friedman wrote in The New York Times<\/a>, these older faces stand out \u201cin a world where viewers are inundated with images in which every sign of age \u2013 every wrinkle, hollow, age spot \u2013 has been filled in, tightened, filtered, lifted or otherwise erased\u201d.<\/p>\n Old age feels like the final frontier in radical acceptance \u2013 look at the contrast between Bad Bunny and Kris Jenner who\u2019s cryogenically frozen herself in 2012.<\/p>\n![\"Bad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3c33ef1f1be22cc329f31b7a21ce7a788a6dca84.jpeg\")
Bad Bunny, 32, as he appeared at the Met Gala in an older guise, and the author, Cherie Gilmour, who is not quite 40, as she will look at 80, according to this AI-generated image based on her current-day selfies.Evan Agostini\/Invision\/AP; Google Gemini<\/p>\n
![\"Bad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/31d02da8d2d65ec58e4d5a3cd3b00fc9b215f34e.jpeg\")
Bad Bunny performing in Sydney in March.Maira Troncoso<\/p>\n