DOUPAI Magical Photo Transformations

Submission 4,389

About

DOUPAI Magical Photo Transformations or DOUPAI Holograms refers to a series of memes based on the Magical Photo Transformation effect of DOUPAI mobile video creation app which combines two images together to produce a single holographic image. After gaining popularity on TikTok in late October 2019, the format received spread in humorous edits on Instagram.

Origin

On December 14th, 2018, version 1.12 of mobile video creation app DOUPAI was released.^[1]^[2] In the update, a hologram video effect "Magical Photo Transformation" was added. The tool produced a holographic image from any two images submitted by the user, with the resulting video showing the produced image from several angles (example shown below).

On October 12th, 2019, TikTok user @huyenxinh_01 posted the earliest known viral video featuring the effect,^[3] with the post receiving over 1.9 million likes and 12,700 comments on the platform within one month (shown below). The video showed a happy emoji turning into a sad emoji removing a happy mask, accompanied by "Can We Kiss Forever?" by Kina.

Spread

In the following weeks, the trend received significant spread on the app, with notable posts made by users @parmardilip760,^[4] @smart_boy_adi^[5] and @sugurly…zlpz^[6] (shown below).

Additionally, the video posted by @huyenxinh_01 received further spread on Twitter and Instagram. For example, an October 21st, 2019, retweet by Twitter account @cursedemojis received over 162,000 views in two weeks.^[7]

Instagram Spread

On October 27th, 2019, Instagram user pba.mp4 posted a Le Monke meme based on the effect, with the video receiving over 14,400 views and 2,800 likes in two weeks (shown below).^[8]

In the following weeks, the format received a significant spread on Instagram, including notable edits by chubeyyy,^[9] fr1ck.mp4,^[10] fatherthanos.mp4^[11] and keanu.if.^[12]