How It Started vs. How It’s Going

What this version shows

The picture is split by a vertical line. On the left is a dark background with gold fireworks, a glossy three-dimensional 2020, and the words “Happy New Year.” On the right is the large face of a man in a dark jacket and a light striped shirt: his eyes are squeezed shut, his face is shining with tears, and his mouth is twisted.

The result is a ready-made joke about 2020: festive anticipation at the start and tears at the end. Where the crying man’s shot comes from cannot be determined from the image itself, so it is better not to name the film or the actor without confirmation.

The left half is styled as a standard greeting card: sparkles, gold, lights. The right half, by contrast, is stripped of decoration and shows raw emotion. The “greeting card versus reality” clash makes the template funny even without reading a word.

When and how the format appeared

The “how it started and how it’s going” format spread on Twitter in autumn 2020. According to one account, the first known version was posted on September 23, 2020, by a Twitter user: a screenshot of a conversation and a photo with her partner. This is only the earliest example found, not proven priority, so the claim should not be treated as definitive.

By the first days of October, the format had been picked up by companies, sports clubs, media outlets, and celebrities. The version by the musician Quavo from October 7, 2020, with a pickup line about ice, became widely known. Most people used the format to tell stories about personal paths: from the first message to a relationship, from a first drawing to a job, or simply for jokes.

Two ways of using it

The first is warm and sincere: achievements, weddings, the path from an empty room to one’s own studio. The second is self-deprecating: “how it started” is presented with cheerful anticipation, while “how it’s going” shows the consequences.

Unlike the usual before-and-after formats, this format shows the course of events rather than just the outcome. The time between the pictures is left out, and the reader fills in the intermediate steps. The second frame doesn’t have to be bad or good: it is enough that it is unexpected for someone who looks only at the first one.

Caption examples

Example one: on the left, “Me: I’ll build healthy habits from Monday,” on the right, a photo of a lonely donut. The contrast between plan and result.

Example two: on the left, a photo of a clean desktop, on the right, a desk with a mountain of cups. Captions here can be left out altogether.

Example three: on the left, “bought one cactus,” on the right, “jungle apartment.” The joke works through escalation.

Example four, a warm one: on the left, a first school drawing notebook, on the right, a finished drawing on a tablet. The contrast is positive, and the joke turns into praise.

Tips

It works best when the difference between the frames is clear: let the left side be a modest or optimistic beginning and the right side the result. In the joking version, don’t put too many words in; the caption should be readable in a second.

The version with the crying man is tied to 2020, and today viewers will read it as a reference to that period. For other topics, it is better to put together your own pair of frames.

When assembling a pair, pick frames of the same size and keep the vertical line in the middle: that is an almost required feature of the format. The labels “How it started” and “How it’s going” can be left in the original language or translated: the meaning doesn’t change.