The distinction becomes especially important when a headline promises to reveal what a named or identifiable person looks like today.
That is a separate claim requiring separate evidence.
Why Readers Want to See the Person Today
The phrase “here’s what he looks like today at 40” taps into a familiar kind of curiosity.
People enjoy seeing how individuals change over time. Childhood photographs invite comparisons with adult appearances, while stories about remarkable early-life events create a natural desire to learn what happened next.
The appeal is similar to seeing a former child performer decades after their first television appearance or discovering what became of someone whose photograph once appeared in the news.
Readers want a conclusion to the story.
They want to know whether the child grew up normally, whether he remembers the attention, and whether his family still talks about the event.
Those are reasonable questions. But a responsible article must distinguish between what readers want to know and what the available evidence actually establishes.
