# Your Child as your FB Profile Pic **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 16, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960 "2010-09-16T12:58:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/81 "2010-09-19T03:13:20Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I don’t mind when people put pictures of their kids. But an acquaintance of mine was really excited that her daughter was becoming potty-trained, and changed her profile pic to a pastel blue bowl containing a fresh, steaming toddler turd. That was the day I figured out how to ignore someone’s posts on facebook. Okay, THAT’s going a wee bit far. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/82 "2010-09-19T03:46:24Z")
/me tries desperately to think of a way to make a ‘wee bit far’ and a number one/Number two joke, but nothing’s floating to the surface. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/83 "2010-09-19T04:54:03Z")
I see what you did there. ---
**Author:** ![Liz\_Marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Liz\_Marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liz_Marie)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/84 "2010-09-19T06:30:03Z")
> [@NinetyWt](#): > > I don’t get this “it’s supposed to be a picture of you!” stuff. No, it’s supposed to be a picture of whatever _I_ want to put up there. > > If you can’t find me because it’s not a picture of me then guess what, I don’t want to be found. > > I have no problem with people putting up pictures of their kids, their dogs, their Aunt Gemma, their cat, Frank Zappa, a beer can, the Statue of Liberty for a profile pic … for fsck’s sake, it’s THEIR web page, not mine. Put up whatever you want. I agree with this. I don’t understand how someone else’s profile picture could annoy or anger someone. Who cares? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/85 "2010-09-19T07:50:33Z")
> [@Liz\_Marie](#): > > I agree with this. I don’t understand how someone else’s profile picture could annoy or anger someone. Who cares? Not anger, but yeah, annoyance. To the same degree as “someone bringing their kid and wearing jeans to a really fancy restaurant”. Not illegal or immoral, but rather not fitting in with the self identity of a place. Myspace is sort of whatever goes, but Facebook was originally marketed as the place to go for “one, real identity, only”. It’s common for certain types of social websites to require profile pics to be actually a picture of yourself. It’s still a little bit nebulous - it would probably be better to create three separate categories (outside of generic albums): profile pic (a sort of self-flag), self-portrait (actual likeness, and avatar (the little thumbnail image next to your comments). Right now, these are all the same thing on Facebook. They should probably be separated. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/86 "2010-09-19T08:37:29Z")
Seeing as I know a lot of people who post old pictures of themselves, it’s potentially confusing. What I hate is when someone uses a famous person they think they look like. Or a sexy pose that makes me think they are spam. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/87 "2010-09-19T12:25:27Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Seeing as I know a lot of people who post old pictures of themselves, it’s potentially confusing. > > What I hate is when someone uses a famous person they think they look like. Or a sexy pose that makes me think they are spam. I recognize that this will be more of an opinion than anything else, but I always thought that when someone posts a picture of a celeb as their avatar it’s because they like that person - not because they thought they looked like them. That never crossed my mind. What is your (or anyone’s) experience with the ‘celeb’ avatar? How common (IYO) is it for the person to have the celeb photo because they think they look like the person? I ask because I have a few FB friends who have celeb avatars and 1 or 2 could _vaguely_ be considered to look like the celeb. I could ask them, but I think it would be kind of an odd question to ask. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/88 "2010-09-19T12:45:06Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > What is your (or anyone’s) experience with the ‘celeb’ avatar? How common (IYO) is it for the person to have the celeb photo because they think they look like the person? There was one of those “change your profile pic” weeks a few months ago (longer?) when you were supposed to change your picture to a celebrity you look like. Some people might have left theirs up. There have also been weeks when you were supposed to post a picture of you as a child, your wedding picture, and a picture of you with a sibling. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/89 "2010-09-19T13:33:31Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > > [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > > > It’s not supposed to represent\* your entire being\* it’s supposed to represent _what you look like_. I think people saying it is creepy or abhorrent are over the top but I don`t see how you could say it’s not missing the point of a profile picture and also somewhat weird. > > Where in the rules does it say that the picture’s supposed to be of you? It’s really not. It can be anything you want. It’s not even a ‘norm’ for it to be a picture of yourself. A facebook is a printed collection of photographs with a little biographic information next to each photo. They’re traditionally printed and distributed to new college classes so you can learn about your classmates. Mark Zuckerberg’s better known Facebook was started at Harvard as an online facebook and expanded to many other colleges before being opened to the public. So, yeah, it really is supposed to be a picture of you. I’m certainly not saying you _can’t_ use a picture of your kid or your dog and I don’t think anyone else is either. I’m not even saying using a picture of your dog or baby on [facebook.com](http://facebook.com) is exactly the same as submitting a picture of your dog for your printed facebook when you went to college. Facebook has clearly evolved to be way more than a facebook. But a picture of yourself is the norm, it is what you’re supposed to use, and not using it is kind of weird. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/90 "2010-09-19T13:47:48Z")
This is coming from someone who isn’t a parent: All my SILS/BILS have photos of this kids as the FB profile pics. Most of the kids are roughly junior high/high school age. It strikes me as weird. I’d be more understanding if, say, the kids were babies or perhaps toddlers and my SILs were first-time mothers. I can understand proclaiming your first born to the world. I can also understand using kids as a profile pic if they’re young and most of your adult friends are fellow parents. That last bit irks me, though, because IMHO it’s proclaiming to the world that you have no other identity than being Johnny or Susie’s parent. But I digress. What strikes me, though, is that some of my in-laws aren’t so much on FB for themselves as they are keeping an eye on their kids. They seldom post anything other than becoming friends with X or Y. You go to X or Y’s profile page to discover they’re a niece’s or nephew’s classmate. Yeah, I know it’s part of helicopter parenting, but it freaking irks me to no end. If FB had existed when I was in college, there would be NO FREAKING WAY I’d let my mother friend me. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/91 "2010-09-19T14:12:23Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > a picture of yourself is the norm, it is what you’re supposed to use, and not using it is kind of weird. No, it’s really not. I have 169 friends, 33 of them have a picture that is not of them, that’s about 20%. That’s a significant percentage, definitely well out of the “weird” range. Their pictures include, vehicles, scenery, children, animals, musical instruments, doodles and so on. Mine was of my dog until recently (this was not me proclaiming to the world that I am a parent of a dog, the dog is way down the pecking order these days, but I happened to like the picture.) ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/92 "2010-09-19T16:41:58Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > > [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > > > a picture of yourself is the norm, it is what you’re supposed to use, and not using it is kind of weird. > > No, it’s really not. I have 169 friends, 33 of them have a picture that is not of them, that’s about 20%. That’s a significant percentage, definitely well out of the “weird” range. > > Their pictures include, vehicles, scenery, children, animals, musical instruments, doodles and so on. Mine was of my dog until recently (this was not me proclaiming to the world that I am a parent of a dog, the dog is way down the pecking order these days, but I happened to like the picture.) Being weird and being the norm are two different things. 4 of my 212 friends have profile pictures that aren’t of them. That means 80 to 98% of Facebook users have themselves pictured in their profile pics. That’s what makes it the norm. On a completely separate issue it’s weird because it’s supposed to be a picture of you and people use their dog or their car or child. It would be weird even if half of all facebook users did it (I suspect it’s much closer to 2% than 20%). If you want to show off your dog or your car you should make an album, and if you really want it in your profile picture to you should appear in the photo. Or you could just have a picture of your dog. But that’s weird. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/93 "2010-09-19T17:44:06Z")
I see where you’re coming from with the origins of Facebook, then. But you concede that it’s evolved - it’s not an actual ‘Facebook’ now. Several of my friends don’t even use their real names because of security issues - they’re lawyers or teachers or whatever and don’t want their clients and students finding them. (I would use a nickname if my name weren’t so ordinary that finding me’s difficult anyway). About 20% of my friends use a picture of something other than themselves, too, and if you include people who _occasionally_ have a picture of something else up, it’s at least 25%. It goes much higher when there’s one of those ‘post a picture of…’ weeks. I don’t usually take part in them, but I did for the famous lookalikes thing and most people thought it was me. 😃 I didn’t get round to changing it for at least a month. TBH, I don’t understand why anyone would be bothered at all by someone having a picture that they consider outside the norm; are you always annoyed by things you consider unusual? Well, except for the turd picture - that would definitely be too weird. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/94 "2010-09-19T19:01:17Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > This is coming from someone who isn’t a parent: > > All my SILS/BILS have photos of this kids as the FB profile pics. Most of the kids are roughly junior high/high school age. > > It strikes me as weird. That _is_ a little weird. I can see babies, toddlers, small kids - but high school kids? That makes it look like you hope people think you’re still an 18-year old hottie. **Fuzzy** I had no idea that a ‘facebook’ was a real thing. Thank you for that explanation! I must admit that if a photo of one’s self was required, then I would not have a Facebook. I hate pictures of me, and I fail this other thing someone mentioned above of having pictures of myelf ‘at least somewhere on the site’. I think there are a few, but there aren’t many. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/95 "2010-09-19T19:07:51Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > I see where you’re coming from with the origins of Facebook, then. But you concede that it’s evolved - it’s not an actual ‘Facebook’ now. Several of my friends don’t even use their real names because of security issues - they’re lawyers or teachers or whatever and don’t want their clients and students finding them. (I would use a nickname if my name weren’t so ordinary that finding me’s difficult anyway). > > About 20% of my friends use a picture of something other than themselves, too, and if you include people who _occasionally_ have a picture of something else up, it’s at least 25%. It goes much higher when there’s one of those ‘post a picture of…’ weeks. I don’t usually take part in them, but I did for the famous lookalikes thing and most people thought it was me. 😃 I didn’t get round to changing it for at least a month. > > TBH, I don’t understand why anyone would be bothered at all by someone having a picture that they consider outside the norm; are you always annoyed by things you consider unusual? > > Well, except for the turd picture - that would definitely be too weird. 😃 To be honest it doesn’t really annoy me at all and I said in one of my earlier posts that people calling it “creepy” are way over the top. I guess it’s just a case of somebody on the Internet being wrong and me needing to correct them. Because, I think that everyone saying that profile pictures aren`t supposed to be pictures of themselves is wrong. A car or dog or baby doesn’t make as much sense as a picture of them does; in fact it makes a lot less sense. That’s all there is to it. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960/96 "2010-09-19T19:25:53Z")
I purposely avoid using pictures of myself as my default facebook pic. I need to keep a low profile because of my job and need to be able to plausibly deny that it is me if a weird member of the general public tries to friend me on there. Maybe it seems weird to my friends. Luckily, I stopped caring about what other people think of me a long time ago. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-as-your-fb-profile-pic/553960.md?page=4)