TikTokkers are turning Google Street View into a nostalgic time machine

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

There’s a new trend on the app in which folks dig up old Google Maps images showing their homes, meaningful places, or photos from a specific time via Street View to tell a story — this might involve a relative they lost, a past relationship, a childhood moment, or whatever else.

Here’s a TikTok, for instance, of a person showing their now-deceased grandparents working on their lawn in 2008.

Here’s another of a grandmother, this time sitting on their porch.

Here’s one of someone playing with their childhood dog.

Here’s one that’s just stores in someone’s hometown that have closed.

Lots of the comments in these wistful posts are about how nostalgic and sad they are. Some folks have even lamented looking for their deceased relatives and not finding them on Google Maps.

The trend caught my attention because I wrote about Street View nostalgia back in 2021, long before it became a TikTok trend. At the time, I explored how strange it felt to see your life — your home, your old car — frozen in a specific moment in time.

“The reason why the Google Street thing wasn’t enough…what you were really wanting was to relive, to some extent, that little portion of your life,” said Dr. Krystine Batcho, a psychologist who has studied nostalgia extensively, told Mashable in 2021. “Now, when I say relive it, that can end up being misunderstood by people. Generally, people don’t want to go back and live their old life. That’s not what I mean. But it’s a little bit like visiting.”

The folks on TikTok seem to be experiencing the same feelings that I did. Looking at old images on Street View are a window into an old version of your life, one you left behind but recall with some fondness. If you want to look at old images for an address, you just need to click “see more dates,” and the backlog with auto-populate on the bottom of your screen.

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