I hear you on this - but I did want to say that I’ve had some experience with this. I work in HR and at a previous company, and I remember one time in particular that a coworker of mine looked up a potential hire who had a bunch of photos of herself drinking and such (via the applicant’s email). The person ended up getting a job at the company, but there was a discussion about the photos as an indicator of a potential drinking problem.
Then again, this was a week or so after an interviewee had come in who smelled of alcohol…
Those are all pictures of yourself. It’s the difference between having a picture of yourself drinking and having a picture of a martini. One says “I am a person who enjoys an occasional drink”, and the other says “My entire being is represented by this martini”.
Interesting take by all the various people here. I have half a dozen photos of me I use on FB and change them out every couple of weeks. All ranging in age from me at age 2 to age 50. Only the age 50 one looks like me today. I personally like the way I have changed through the years and so I recycle those photos. My current pic is me at age 4 on a trike, with only one suspender holding up my pants—I look total bad ass in it. One bad ass 4 year old mo-fo
Because if you’re not a parent, then you probably can’t understand using your kid’s photo as a facebook profile picture. Just like if you’re not a dog owner, you probably can’t understand using a dog’s picture either.
Find it “abhorrent” that I am using my kid’s photo? Please. For my sake. UNFRIEND ME. Please.
But why did I bring up the whole “not a parent” thing? Because of the whole concept that parents have no identity they want to share with the world other than their children… you must realize this is timeless? It’s the same as the parent who whips out the wallet full of infant pictures. People without kids will always roll their eyes, tolerate it, and then bitch about it to their other childless friends (or child-free if that’s how you roll… but please… let’s not go down that rabbithole in this thread).
I use Facebook primarily to keep friends updated about my life. My kid is the dominant feature in my life right now. I’m okay with that (plus I don’t really have time for much else). Am I identity-less outside of my kid? You’ll have to decide that. I find it laughable because I have such a strong, perhaps overwhelming real-life identity. I choose not to express it strongly on Facebook. And perhaps that’s the real divide… I am not on Facebook to express my identity or proclaim my amazing individuality with the world through a series of links to companies I like and Onion articles that are soooo me. I primarily share pictures of things that are happening in my life. Almost all of which involve my kid.
So aside from the whole “you don’t have an identity other than your kid” meme, I understand the irritation with people who use profile pictures of things other than themselves. It’s sometimes frustrating to find John Smith when there are 1000 of them and they all have pictures of random things and places and (god forbid) children. But it’s not that big a deal. I don’t really care if you can find my profile. If we are talking in person, I’ll whip out my iphone an add you on the spot. No mess, no problems. If you are a friend of a friend, it’s relatively easy to spot. If you are a stalker ex-girlfriend? Muddle through the symbols and baby photos and figure it out.
And no, I wouldn’t use my kid’s photo as my passport photo. Because that’s a government document intended to verify my identity and thus it would be completely ridiculous to have a picture of someone else even if they are related to me. But thanks for asking.
Not necessarily. I had Celtling when I was almost 39 years old. I’d had two careers, both middling successful, and a long time to be “just me.” For this 18 year stretch, when I get to enjoy my child, it’s just all about her. It’s that way because that’s how I want it.
I’ll go back to my old self-indulgent ways when she heads off to college. For right now, no, I don’t want to go away for a weekend. I only get so many Saturdays with my child, and it won’t be long before she wants to hang out with her friends. In the mean time, I intend to make the most of every minute I can get.
I must be out in left field (not unusual), but I don’t see a profile pic as representing a person’s entire being. Not everyone updates their profile pictures on a regular basis.
It’s actually a bit of a pain in the butt, IMO. You have to take a picture (with a digital camera), upload it to your computer, then upload it to FB. Maybe I’m just lazy.
A friend of mine has FB profile pics of his dog and I certainly don’t think that represents the whole of him.
And that’s fine, but why have a facebook at all then? Because I will tell you, as a parent, approximately .002% of the people you know have the slightest interest in your kid.
First, I want to thank people for responding in this thread - I’m finding it rather introspective as it’s making me consider what I actually do on FB.
Second, to the quote above. I actually don’t really use FB to keep my friends updated - in that I don’t post that sort of stuff on my wall. Or, I should say, I haven’t until very recently. I usually just post articles on something I find interesting. Or I’ll comment on something that I find interesting. Only recently have I made more of an effort to mention stuff on what I’m doing and even still, it’s not all that often.
I guess I assume other people are the same way. I certainly don’t think that if you post stuff about your children that this encompasses ‘you’.
Ha! I feel you there. I understand the sentiment… believe it or not, at one point I didn’t have kids either. And I didn’t give a rats ass about my friend’s kid’s Halloween costume either.
BUT… I live approximately 1500 miles away from my family and the majority of my life-long friends (many of them have children now also). Facebook is a network where we can watch each other’s kids grow and develop. And we do. We all share pictures and comment on each other’s kids.
No, it’s not how you use Facebook. Believe me, I have single friends still living the life on Facebook. I am sure their eyes glaze over when they see more kid picture posts. It’s gotta be the exact opposite reaction that I have when I see their Playboy Party 2010 photos hit Facebook.
But to each his own. It’s not wrong that I use Facebook differently than you (the generic you).
ETA: You want to know what irritates me about Facebook? My friends who use it to make asinine political statements. I’d rather look at pictures of the Nazi Youth than read one more post about Obamacare!
Honestly, I kind of feel that the same amount of people care about what I do on a regular basis. Which is probably why I haven’t (in the past) posted those sorts of things on my wall.
I noticed that I would ‘hide’ people who frequently posted stuff about mundane things they were doing. Which was incentive for me not to do the same.
“Off to little Johnny’s T-ball game!”
“Lost. Little Johnny is so upset. :(”
“Little Johnny did the cutest thing! He peed in the tub!!!”
“Time to put little Johnny to bed!”
6 hours of silence
“Time to make breakfast for little Johnny! He only likes the stone cut organic oatmeal that takes an hour!”
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.
I stumbled on this last night and was seriously creeped out. It had my name, address, my dad’s PO BOX (which isn’t mine, but ONE company incorrectly mails me at), my phone number, my income, a photo of my house, and much more. When I posted on FB that people should go check theirs and get it removed, I got lectured that it’s my fault for posting that information online. I assure you all: I do not post my home address, let alone my father’s PO BOX online. Clearly, some companies are selling my info and its being scanned into these public databases, but jfc. Creepy!
Oh, but to the OP: put me in the boat that I’d think you were one of those parents that has lost all of their identity and moved on to being 100% about the kids. Like, your license plate would say: KIDSmommy or something. Well, with the appropriate amount of letters, I mean :). I have friends like this and it’s fine, but I’m just sayin’, that’s my assumption.
I generally use Facebook to keep in touch with friends from high school and college. That being said, I want to see what a fat, ugly slob you turned out to be; I’m really not interested in your kid.
I don’t really see how a picture of me holding a martini vs. just a martini somehow mean pretty drastically different things, so… let’s try another example. Football season has just started. A few of my friends have replaced their profile pictures with logos associated with their favorite teams. Does this indicate to you that their entire being is represented by that team? Sure, there are some people who live and breathe a particular sports team, but those are the sorts of people that would have a dozen different pictures in their profile of the logos and them at games and with memorabilia.
I still think that expecting a person’s life to be summed up by a single picture is just too much because no one is actually that one-dimensional. Maybe it’s just that we have different expectations for profile pictures. I don’t expect it to be representative of the whole person, or even anything particularly meaning.
As a further example, I’ll use myself. I’d had the same profile picture since I started my Facebook account until I decided to change it a few days ago. It’s now a picture of an anime/video game character that has a particular relevance, as anyone who even cursorily knows me ought to gather. If someone were to look at it and judge that I’m obsessed with that particular video game, they’d be horribly wrong since I don’t think I’ve played it more than once in the last 10 years. If someone I don’t know thinks that or doesn’t understand the relevance, I don’t care.
This is a bit different, though. I don’t think anyone would really think much if one’s current profile picture is him holding a drink, but it’s something else entirely if you have a bunch of them. I think people forget that these things are often publically viewable and more and more companies are using social networks as part of the hiring process. I think it’s a bit different though because it can raise a valid concern if someone has a bunch of drunken photos from a bunch of different events.
I think it differs from a profile pic of a kid though because, well, parents are expected to have kids. What sort of potential issue could it put forth if you look someone up and find they have 100 different pictures of their kids?
Actually while the discussion was going on I felt it was no big deal. There was nothing illegal or anything, just a few pics with alcohol in them. However the thought going on was ‘well if they are going to show the world this…then they must have a problem…’, which I found ridiculous considering the fact that the floor manager routinely went out after work and got blitzed.
