This is one of those cases where I think everyone is an asshole.(assuming that the story is true) Is she weird because she objects to him having a contact photo of her? - yes. Is he weird because he sees her objection as trying to “dictate how he lives and what he does”? Also yes. If it’s so unimportant that she should chill, the same goes for him.
I’m going to take a guess and say that DIL is afraid that grandma is going to do something that DIL doesn’t want done with the photos - like put them on Facebook.
There’s definitely a Reddit-Buzzfeed-Industrial-Conplex where people will write fake stories on Reddit, Buzzfeed or even “legit” sites like Newsweek will pick them up, the Reddit author will get interviewed and then promote something else to make money. Anti-Work is the newest subreddit to now be constantly reposted by mainstream sites.
Ditto, my husband uses my pic for me, and I use one of him sleeping with one of our cats for him. I even got my primary care doc to pose for one for his office number =) I get pretty much all my friends to let me take pictures of them for their numbers.
Fwiw, the picture link in that thread post has apparently been DNS-squatted* by some advertising shit-heads (I got an ad for a mobile game), so don’t bother trying to see the picture of the OP of that thread.
*Probably expired and snapped up by online advertising vultures
That’s different, she doesn’t like those specific photos and that what she sees as ugly, he apparently thinks is the real her. Fairly normal insecurity.
The other story is totally made up, as is almost everything on AITA on Reddit.
The supposed “point” of the original post is that using her photo this way is “a privacy issue”. All the pictures she has of her husband on her phone are apparently “in a hidden app”. It’s nonsense unless she’s in witness protection and her husband works with the mobsters who want her dead or something. And then she shouldn’t be posting to AITA.
After reading that article I have deep sympathy for her husband. I think she’s nuts. He needs reexamine who he married. If she maintained a position like that, I might have to get a divorce. I’ve posted pictures of my wife on Facebook without her permission! Good lord, seems like this woman would go crazy if she saw that.
I don’t think that, in and of itself, is an unreasonable thing to get upset about (if someone posted a photo of you on Facebook without their permission). Mind you, my wife is fine with it, my friends – as far as I know – are fine with it, but I personally try to severely limit posting any photos of my friends, and I definitely do not tag them without permission first. I think that’s reasonable, at least for my generation (X). Now, in terms of the woman in the OP which I don’t believe is actually a real person, I could actually understand not wanting a picture she finds displeasing of herself showing up on a phone when its ringing, so somebody else might see. Do I think that’s a little weird? Yes. Do I know anyone like this? No. But it doesn’t really seem that unreasonable to me to at least ask for someone not to use that as their contact photo, as that’s not necessarily completely private (if I’m understanding it correctly.)
Maybe if it was a picture of her passed out drunk or some other embarrassing photo. Frankly, I love and respect my wife and would never consider posting something disrespectful. But, that was not the point the woman in the article was making. Also, I would respect it if she asked me to not post pictures on her anywhere and we had an agreement about that. But, I think the woman in the article is right about her self-assessment on this one.
I’d correlate her concerns to irrational phobias. i.e. triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13). It’s meaningful to her, but not to the general population.
My response would be to change her contact image to an avatar I would associate with her.
Definitely not a hill to die on. Choose your battles carefully.
I made a ringtone of Gene Wilders saying “It’s Alive! It’s Alive” from the movie Young Frankenstein that I use for my wife’s incoming calls. I told her about it beforehand and she thought it was funny.
Years ago, when I was working in a restaurant, a customer left his phone behind, and it was brought to the manager’s office for safekeeping. It rang while I was in there cashing out after a shift, and a nude picture of a woman popped up on the screen. The manager rolled his eyes and explained that the guy had been calling from his girlfriend’s phone all day, forcing the manager to look at that picture. (I know, “forcing”? But he did seem genuinely annoyed about it.) I felt like he should just go ahead and answer; this bozo obviously couldn’t remember where he left it and was desperate, and the sooner we helped him out the sooner we could get rid of it. Anyway, I have been especially wary of allowing people to possess private photos of me ever since. Even if I trust them not to do anything malicious with the photos, people are just too dumb to exist sometimes.