Make-up Mondays: Take a step back in time this Women’s Day

SOCIAL media trends are constantly being established and are ever-changing, and it can be a daunting task to attempt to catch a ride on the fast-moving wave of these trends. However, if you are looking for a fun trend to get involved in, which can include the entire family, and an innovative way to celebrate women’s month, get your dose of nostalgic feelings by recreating old family photos.

This challenge began on TikTok with users recreating old pictures from various periods of their lives. It was named the ‘I’m just a Kid’ challenge due to the fact that the re-creation videos are shared with a song playing over them. The song is called I’m just a Kid and is by the Canadian rock band, Simple Plan.

The challenge has, however, found popularity even outside of TikTok with social media users digging up old family pictures, from touching mother/son and father/daughter moments to sibling pile-ons and even old wedding photos. They then share the wholesome recreations on their social media platforms. The activity will not only take you back to a time in your life that you look fondly to, but it is also a chance to bring family members together for an interactive and enjoyable family activity.

ALSO READ: Women’s wellness – everyone is responsible

The challenge also provides those who have lost loved ones a new way to reconnect with them. If you have, for example, lost a grandparent, a great way to pay homage to their life is to recreate pictures that they took when they were your age or close to your age. Some grandchildren uncannily resemble their grandparents, and it can be fun to highlight those similar features and revive their memory by recreating some of those old black-and-white pictures.

This challenge can even be utilised to commemorate Women’s Month. Daughters can honour their mothers by recapturing their old pictures or their grandmothers whom they have lost and whom they may want to reconnect with in some way.

For this week’s edition of Make-up Mondays, I decided to take part in this challenge by recreating my grandmother’s old South African Identity Card. My grandmother passed away more than 50 years ago, and I was never able to meet her, but I was lucky enough to be named after her. Her name was Dianne, and I was given the middle name Dianne. I have been told by people who knew her that she was a beacon of confidence; she was also very stylish and loved people. I have only been able to get a sense of what she was like through other people’s accounts and pictures, but I have been told that I bear an eerie resemblance to my late grandmother, which I am very proud of.

ALSO READ: Women’s Month celebrated in August

In preparation to re-create my grandmother’s ID, I analysed the ID and noticed that she had been classified as an ‘other coloured’. Other coloureds were a sub-group of the ‘coloured’ group in terms of the Population Registration Act. Persons who fell in the ‘other coloured’ group were people who were not included in the Cape Coloured Group, the Malay Group, the Griqua Group, the Chinese Group, the Indian Group or the Other Asiatic Group, and who were not white people or native South African.

It hurt me to think of the discrimination she must have faced, but I then thought back to all the stories I had heard of her fierce confidence. As a person born post-apartheid, I still face discrimination, prejudice and hatred, although less concentrated and blatant than what Dianne and thousands of South Africans in that era faced. This Women’s Day, I remember my grandmother and will try to embody her confidence and live as proudly and as fiercely as I can, even in the face of discrimination and adversity, just as she did.

I had a great time with this challenge and even though I never met her, doing this challenge made me feel closer to my grandmother. I highly recommend hoping on this trend and recreating some old pictures of women who inspire you this Women’s Month.