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AI 'Then and Now' Videos: 520K Subs & 391M Views in 3 Months

Breaking down a Faceless channel earning up to $1.6M/year with AI celebrity transformation videos - and how to create them easily

January 21, 2025


AI Cosmic YouTube Channel

AI Cosmic has achieved 520,000 subscribers and over 391 million views with 290 videos. Starting on October 15, 2024, nearly all of this growth happened in just 3 months—with estimated yearly earnings between $98K and $1.6M. Let's break down how this channel achieved these results and how you can create the same style of videos.

Real Performance Data

Channel Stats

The numbers tell an impressive story. With 520K subscribers, 391 million total views, and monthly views around 116 million, AI Cosmic has become one of the fastest-growing channels in the celebrity transformation niche.

Revenue Stats

Source: Social Blade

Here's an example of the videos driving these numbers:

The video shows a smooth, cinematic transition between a celebrity's younger self and their current appearance—two people appearing to share a moment across time. Individual videos regularly hit 20-30M+ views.

Why This Format Works

The "Then and Now" celebrity transformation niche taps into deep human curiosity about aging, time, and the people we recognize. When viewers see familiar faces transformed through time in a single smooth motion, they can't look away.

First, the nostalgia trigger. Seeing a young version of a beloved celebrity instantly transports viewers to memories associated with that era. This emotional connection drives engagement far beyond typical content.

Second, the universal fascination with aging. Everyone ages, and everyone wonders how they'll look in the future—or how they looked in the past. Celebrity transformations let viewers explore this curiosity through familiar faces.

Third, the "magic trick" quality. When two distinct photos morph into each other with the subjects appearing to share eye contact, it feels like witnessing something impossible. This wonder keeps viewers watching and rewatching.

Fourth, the built-in celebrity audience. Every famous person has fans actively searching for content about them. Each video taps into an existing, engaged audience that's ready to watch, comment, and share.

Finally, the content is endlessly expandable. Every celebrity, musician, athlete, or public figure who has aged becomes potential content. Historical figures, movie stars, politicians—the subject pool is essentially infinite.

How Complex Is It to Make These Yourself?

Creating these transformation videos manually requires technical precision. First, you need to find high-quality "then" and "now" photos with similar framing and composition. Then write complex AI prompts describing camera movement, eye contact timing, and smooth transitions. Use an image-to-video tool with start/end frame capability to generate the transformation. Finally, handle video encoding and output.

The real challenge is writing prompts that produce smooth, cinematic transitions where the two subjects appear to share a moment. Most attempts result in unnatural morphing, broken eye contact, or jarring visual artifacts. It requires extensive prompt engineering and typically many failed generations before getting one usable output.

Simplify with Hooc AI

The Then and Now template automates this entire process.

Then and Now Template Input

You only need to input 2 things: the "then" image and the "now" image. Hooc handles the rest.

Under the hood, a streamlined 2-step pipeline runs with a carefully crafted 50+ line prompt that handles all the complexity. Video generation AI creates a smooth dolly shot where both subjects appear to share eye contact across time. The video processing engine handles final encoding and output.

The result is a cinematic celebrity transformation video in the exact format driving AI Cosmic's 391 million views. No prompt engineering, no switching between tools, no video editing required.

Example: Input → Output

Here's a real example from the template. Upload two images—"then" and "now":

Input (Before): Before Image

Input (After): After Image

Output:

Two images in, cinematic transformation video out. The AI handles the smooth dolly shot, eye contact timing, and video encoding automatically.

Get Started

Ready to tap into the celebrity transformation niche that's generating hundreds of millions of views?

Start Creating Today

Use this template to create cinematic celebrity transformation videos.

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