The internet may be busy asking ChatGPT to turn today’s pictures into glamorous ’80s portraits, but Shashi Tharoor and Renuka Chowdhury had a very different answer.Why recreate the decade with AI when you actually lived it?As the retro-photo trend took over Instagram and X, the two Congress leaders decided to skip the filters and share something far more convincing: their real photographs from the 1980s.And honestly, the pictures speak for themselves.
Shashi Tharoor understood the assignment
On September 9, Shashi Tharoor joined the trend by posting a series of photographs from the actual decade.“The ’80s seem to be back, courtesy of AI. I thought I’d join the trend the old-fashioned way,” he wrote, before sharing a few throwback pictures.No AI makeover. No carefully written prompt. No digital ageing or retro styling.Just Tharoor, as he actually looked in the ’80s.And the fashion alone was enough to get people talking. The photographs captured the unmistakable style of the era, while Tharoor’s followers quickly turned the comments into a full-blown appreciation section.One user joked that he doesn’t even need to flirt – he just needs to speak English with that face.Another simply declared that he had “Ate” the trend.The reaction made one thing pretty clear: Tharoor didn’t need AI to recreate an ’80s look. He already had the original photographs.
Renuka Chowdhury had the ultimate receipt
Then came Renuka Chowdhury, and her throwback was arguably even more of a fashion moment.While everyone else was using AI to imagine what they might have looked like decades ago, Chowdhury basically said: I don’t have to imagine it. I’ve got the cover.She shared an actual photograph of herself from the ’80s, when she appeared as the cover star of Savvy, the Indian women’s lifestyle and human-interest magazine.“Everyone’s asking ChatGPT what they would’ve looked like in the ’80s. Me? I’ve got receipts. 😎 No AI needed,” she wrote.And that line pretty much summed up the whole moment.The photograph has everything people now associate with ’80s fashion nostalgia – the styling, the glamour and that unmistakable magazine-cover presence.But more than anything, it’s the authenticity that makes these pictures stand out.The current retro trend is all about recreating a look that once existed. Chowdhury, on the other hand, didn’t have to recreate anything.She was already there.
And the internet noticed
Both posts quickly drew plenty of attention, with followers showering the two politicians with compliments.Tharoor’s comments ranged from jokes about his “aura” to praise for his looks, with one follower saying his “face card” still hasn’t declined.Chowdhury received her own wave of nostalgia-fuelled reactions, with followers calling her a “Diva in her prime” and praising the beauty and style of the ’80s.Someone even compared her to Madhuri Dixit.And that’s really why these two posts landed differently.The viral AI trend is fun. There’s something oddly satisfying about seeing a modern photograph transformed into something that looks like it came out of an old family album or fashion magazine.But Tharoor and Chowdhury flipped the idea completely.They didn’t ask AI to show us what they might have looked like.They showed us what they actually looked like.In a trend built around recreating the past, two people simply pulled out the originals.And suddenly, the real ’80s pictures look a lot more interesting than the AI versions.