Deep Nostalgia

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About

Deep Nostalgia is a AI service that generates animated portraits based on still photographs by adding facial movements, similar to Facemorphs. The service animates photographs based on a number of preset sequences.

History

On February 25th, 2021, family history exploration website MyHeritage^[1]^[2]^[3] launched Deep Nostalgia, an AI tool able to animate photographs by adding facial movements.

With our new Deep Nostalgia™, you can see how a person from an old photo could have moved and looked if they were captured on video! Read more: https://t.co/ZwUwzJRQ26 #RootsTech #RootsTechConnect pic.twitter.com/LERXhrqiut

— MyHeritage (@MyHeritage) February 25, 2021

Features

Deep Nostalgia generates animated versions of still photographs of people by adding facial movements. The service uses AI licensed from D-ID^[3] to animate photographs. The tool offers a choice of several video presets with different movement sequences, with move sets including head turns, blinking and smiling (examples shown below).

Highlights

In late February 2021, the tool gained popularity for the purposes of animating various memes. On February 27th, 2021, Twitter^[4] user @paulfeigelfeld posted an animated version of Unflattering Beyonce (shown below, left). On the same day, Twitter^[5]^[6] user @pretendsmarts posted animated versions of Really High Guy and Hide the Pain Harold (shown below, right).

Later on February 27th, Twitter^[7] user @fakehistoryhunt created a thread in which they posted animated versions of portraits of historic figures, including Queen Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare. The tweet with the animated portrait of Elizabeth I received over 334,000 views in two days (shown below).

https://t.co/MDFSu3J0H1 has created some sort of animate your old photos application and I'm of course using it to feed my history addiction.I apologise in advance to all the ancestors I'm about to offend.Very fake history.I'm sorry Queenie. pic.twitter.com/2np437yXyt

— Fake History Hunter (@fakehistoryhunt) February 28, 2021

On February 28th, 2021, Twitter^[8] user @Afromanticist posted a portrait of American abolitionist Frederick Douglass animated with Deep Nostalgia, with the video gaining over 18,500 retweets, 103,000 likes and 2.4 million views in two days (shown below).

Frederick Douglass, the mighty abolitionist, was the single most photographed person in the United States during the nineteenth century. Here's how he might've looked in motion. Brace yourself and press play. pic.twitter.com/HOxDK7jGyh

— La Marr Jurelle Bruce (@Afromanticist) February 28, 2021

Following the post, multiple news outlets reported on the tool, including articles by The Verge^[9] and The Guardian.^[10]

On February 28th, Vinesauce Vinny showcased the tool during his Twitch broadcast.^[11]

Facemorphs

Facemorphs, also known as First Order Motion Model Deepfakes, refer to videos using a motion capture method that makes static images of people's faces move according to the training model's motion. The method is similar to deepfakes, but uses only one still image instead of a set of images. Facemorphs gained popularity in July 2020 as they were applied to a variety of subjects, particularly to video game developer YandereDev. The method was used frequently with the Yakuza 0 song Baka Mitai.