If you type “Selena Gomez” into the search bar on TikTok, the results should scare you. Or, at the very least, they should make you close the app and go for a long, long walk into the ocean. Because in video after video and in comment after comment, users are hyperfixating on Gomez’s appearance—comparing one red carpet photo to another before, and the one before that, and the one before that, for eternity.
Gomez is simply a woman who aged, had chronic health issues, and got work done………. as if that’s never happened before in history. And for some unknowable algorithmic reason, some folks online can’t seem to shut the fuck up about it. So much so that Gomez—in the big year of 2026—has to field questions about it and explain to those who have watched her on television since childhood that no, she does not look like she did when she was 15. Imagine that.
In a cover story for People, Gomez discussed getting older and touched on the internet’s “intense” obsession vis-à-vis older pictures of her.
“I got to be honest, the 2016 throwbacks and all of it is so much fun, but people get really intense.” She told People. “I always make this joke where I think people want to freeze me in time to that period of my life,” she says.
y’all wanting women to look the same for the rest of their lives is an issue. like grow up she’s still so beautiful. https://t.co/gVp0Ge0FQQ
— ً (@fiImfag) September 15, 2026
“I don’t know… maybe it was probably more interesting because I’m now chilling, which is great,” she added. “But it was such a hectic period in my life… of course I had to rock a smoky eye. I was trying to be cool!”
On aging writ large, she continued: “Getting older has been so much fun. I’m not scared at all. I love getting older. Yeah, things are going to change and things are going to sag, but you’re alive… I think age is just a number in many ways.”
Gomez has long been open about her chronic battle with Lupus, from using steroids to control flare-ups to getting Botox. Still, the Internet World is never satisfied and tells her so every time she steps out, and her Emmys red-carpet appearance on Monday presented social media with more opportunity to criticize her.
I know asking the peanut gallery to stop judging women’s appearances is a Sisyphean task, but… the theories that Gomez is a clone of *checks notes* Geena Davis/a demon? Y’all need to stop. Albeit fascinating to see up close what society lacks in intelligence, the AI-generated videos set to X-Files music, describing how Gomez and Justin Bieber’s love child was sold to the Kardashians and replaced with Geena Davis, are all the more telling about the state of our education system. Also, sadly, the algorithm rewards sensational content. The batshit crazier your Selena conspiracy, the more views you get.
So: I am begging everyone theorizing about her looks—and to look at a picture of themselves when they were 15. Or consider if you, too, would like to be confronted with a picture of your younger self every time you step out of your apartment!
