TikTokers are turning Google Street View into a mysterious time machine

Google has been driving Street View cars around the world for nearly two decades now. And TikTok recently discovered that its photo backlog is ripe with nostalgia.

There’s a new trend in the app where people are digging up old Google Maps photos of their homes, landmarks, or street view photos from a certain era to tell a story — this could involve a lost relative, a past relationship, a childhood, or anything else.

Here’s a TikTok, for example, of someone showing their late grandparents working on their lawn in 2008.

Here is another grandmother, this time sitting on her porch.

Here is another one playing with his childhood dog.

Here is another one that is just a shop in someone’s house that has closed.

Most of the comments on these offensive posts are about how sad and pathetic they are. Some people even cry that they are looking for their dead relatives again not to find them on Google Maps.

This trend caught my attention because I wrote about Street View nostalgia back in 2021, long before it became a TikTok trend. At that time, I explored how strange it was to see your life – your home, your old car – freeze at some point in time.

“The reason why the Google Street thing wasn’t enough…is what you were indeed wanting was to kiss, to some extent, that little part of your life,” said Dr. Krystine Batcho, a psychologist who has studied nostalgia extensively, told Mashable in 2021. It’s misunderstood by people. In general, people don’t want to go back and live their old life. I’m not saying that. But a slowly it’s like visiting.”

People on TikTok seem to be experiencing the same feelings as me. Viewing old photos on Street View is a window into an older version of your life, one you’ve left behind but remember with some fondness. If you want to look at old photos for an address, you just need to click “see more dates,” and the auto-fill backlog is at the bottom of your screen.

Just be warned, if you go down that rabbit hole, pangs of nostalgia will likely follow.