Zoe
by ZOE FOSTER
You know how sometimes a person takes a photo of you and your friends, and you look REALLY TERRIFIC, but Katie has her eyes half closed and Vanessa is on an unflattering angle but you look REALLY TERRIFIC so you put that photo up on Facebook?
Let’s be honest, you’re a bit of a shit. But you’re also completely normal. And because I’m probably not allowed to call readers “a shit” without some kind of statistical back up, here it is: In a study done by MyMemory.com last week, (a photo gift website) of 1500 women, one in four admitted they post deliberately unflattering photos of their friends.
The word ‘deliberately’ is what smacks my gob, because I thought – as per the example I opened with – that this act was chiefly driven by the same kind of adorable vanity the compels us to take 35 selfies in a row when we think we look pretty. (Mine are always in the back of a taxi for some reason.)
But no, according to the study, most of these women were doing it after falling out with their friends, or – wait for it – because they’d had it done to them, and it was retribution time. Cute!
The photo sabotage doesn’t end there, though: two fifths of the women surveyed admitted to uploading pics of friends with no makeup or in unflattering bikini shots. And when asked to take them down, the request was ignored.
Who are these women? How good can you really look in a single photo that justifies publishing a photo of poor Mel without a whisper of concealer on her spots, or Brooke mid-getting out of the pool like some form of reptilian swamp beast? Have we reached a level of self-obsession that negates basic human consideration?
Like me, you’re probably sitting in your gumboots and your terry-towelling tracksuit with your pipe wondering why we women do this to one another. Why would we purposefully make one of our own look bad on a public forum? And even if she did it to us, why perpetuate the venom? Why not just send her a very honest email saying:
- I am ashamed to admit this photo being online is killing me inside a bit
- Is there any chance you might be able to crop me out or take that shot down?
- I have attached a photo in which you look absolutely breathtaking, can you not put that up instead of the one where I am dirtfaced and making out with that guy in the Bintang singlet?
Bronwyn McCann (Editor of Cosmopolitan), Mia Freedman and Zoe Foster… Can you guess who would have posted this one and who might have veto-ed?
To me, photo sabotage is in direct and violent contrast to the sisterhood, which is something I support vehemently, and yet I reckon even sisterhoody dames do it every now and then, probably unthinkingly. I honestly believe (hope?) that a lot of the time, this stuff happens without any of that seedy retribution gear or poisonous intent, it’s just people putting up photos they think are fun, funny, sexy (of them), or committing the worst crime of Facebook known to man, woman or wallaby: downloading every single photo from the night without any editing.
I quit Facebook years ago, for many reasons, but one of them was that I hated the lack of control I had. (This is mirrored in my approach to, well, everything, really.) Photos were popping up of me doing wildly inappropriate things – I was single with a penchant for Whisky for while there; they were heady times – but also there were dinguses who uploaded photos from high school, or Uni or NYE 2001: photos I hadn’t even known existed, and I didn’t feel comfortable having on global display as a professional woman. It’s less conceit (notice I didn’t say “not” conceit) and more the idea that we should do right thing by our friends. If you know someone is going to hate a photo you have of them dancing on a table, then don’t put it on the Internet.
Taking photos of people when they’re being baboons or look less-than-best for your own albums, fine. Putting them online and tagging them with names, not fine. (Screen-printing them and selling them at the markets, minus fine.)
If you’ve had a lovely little giggle along with this post, but are still hanging out for your weekly dose of Zoe’s beauty magic – never fear! You can get your fix here and here.
Zoe is an author, columnist and porridge fan. Her books include the beauty bible Amazing Face, dating and relationship guide Textbook Romance, and three novels, Air Kisses, Playing The Field and The Younger Man. Find more info on her here, or supervise on her daily procrastination here and here.
Please understand that Zoë cannot respond to ALL your questions – but never fear, there are readers that are bound to know the answers, so don’t be afraid to ask.
Are you guilty of Facebook-sabotaging your girlfriends?
Comments
142 Comments so far
I too deleted Facebook a couple of years ago just because I was sick of the crap that goes on! Honestly, just because you think you look fabulous does not mean you have to post a picture of yourself for everyone to see! It’s self obsession.
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Hello, Kim Kardashian are you reading this?
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Thanks Zoe for setting the record straight.
FB can be so negative, dishonest and damaging.
It’s like hanging out your undies out for all to see! Why they hold any interest for anyone is beyond me. Some things need to remain private.
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Doing it on purpose is baffling! These people are not friends, at best, they’re frenemies!
I have an agreement with those I spend most of my time with, that we will get agreement from all involved in a photo, before it goes online. And they understand that I do not like photos of me in bikinis in public view, even if they think I look good! Not that we don’t joke about having such rules – my bestie has the fat-photo-from-new-york one of me that I trust her enough to keep in a deep, dark photo file that will never, ever see the light of day. Likewise, i have a photo of myself that i love, but she looks uncustomarily heinous so it will be forever hidden. We laugh about it, because we each think the other is gorgeous, inside & out. And we allow each other minor conceits because we each understand as women, that we want to present the best possible picture to the world. That’s the kind of friendship I want to keep!
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It’s anyone’s prerogative to be on Facebook or not, but what I don’t understand is people who are on Facebook and are ‘friends’ with people they don’t like. If you don’t want to be involved in bitchiness or gossip or drama, then don’t be ‘friends’ with them. You wouldn’t invite them over for dinner so why invite them online? The people I am ‘friends’ with on Facebook are only people I actually like and want to stay in contact with. I love Facebook- I have friends who live all around the world and it’s the best way to stay in contact with them. And now when I travel, we meet up and it’s great to hear about what they are up to now. Plus I get the best travel tips! My motto is if I wouldn’t be friends with them in real life, then why would I be friends with them online? I may only be connected to 100 people as apposed to 700 people, but at least I can genuinely say I like them,
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Oh Zoe I couldn’t agree more! I quit facebook a few years back. I’ll admit in the beginning I was obsessed, I loved trawling through ppls pics (wasted countless hours doing so!) and then one morning I logged on to find my “friend” had uploaded and tagged me in countless high school pics all of which were not at all flattering, but to make this matter worse my arch enemy who I am certainly not friends with but she is could see them and comment on them and there was not a thing I could do about it! I hated this total lack of control and decided facebook wasn’t worth it, it’s just a medium for ppl to bully and embarrass others and common lets face it how many of those hundreds and thousands of ppl are really friends . . . not many!
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There is one reason sometimes people post unflattering photos of others which I don’t think, after a quick scan of the posts, that anybody has mentioned. Sometimes people get sick of others posting completely unrealistic photos of themselves. A friend on FB got so tired of her friend posting photos of herself that had been photoshopped, slimmed down and always taken from above, in a flattering light that she posted a genuine photo of the person, as she genuinely looks. Cruel? Yes. But kind of understandable too. I wouldn’t do it, but 45 totally unrealistic photos of a person looking 10 years younger and 30 kilos lighter can bring out a person’s mean streak….
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I deleted my FB a few months ago, straight after returning from a technology free (as they should be!) honeymoon. The week without FB and phones was great, but more importantly, it was an awesome start to our marriage. I decided that I wanted that to continue so i deleted FB. Although I have definitely noticed a drop off in social invitations, I’ve noticed a significant drop off in crappy friends and their bitching too!
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It sounds like a mixture of professionalism and image obsessed vanity to me.
I get that you wouldn’t want employers to see you partying on a Saturday night, or in a skimpy outfit, but who cares if you aren’t at your best angle or wearing a face full of make up in a photo?? there are more important things to focus on.
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These days, you can set the security so if somebody “tags” you in a photo it needs your approval!! Problem Solved!!
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Not quite – you have to approve it to go on your timeline, but if you don’t approve it, it still goes up with your name on their timeline. So all their friends see it, even if yours don’t.
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Confused? The photo of the three of you that you have with your article is stunning, all three of you look fantastic….I personally do not use Facebook and agree with the article. Useful to keep in contact with overseas friends or families but the rest leaves me cold. Who really cares what I had for dinner last night? What ever happened to talking to people in person or on the phone, I would much rather share something special that way than a random post to 1000 ‘friends’. Hmmm must be getting old and only 38!
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i’d be interested to see the ages of the women who did upload crap photos of their mates.
Girls who are younger than 40 can be so bitchy and competitive.
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My friends and I have a system down pat – if we’re uploading photos of each other, we’ll send out a text saying we’re putting the pics up now (the album is on private so only we can see) and it gives us a chance to say ‘no’ to any horrible pics that we don’t approve of! Once everything has been okayed, the album is then made ‘public’.
Might sound like a lot of work, but it’s totally worth it. No discovery of horrific pics of yourself that have been up for hours before you’ve logged on to F.B and seen them!
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overkill imo- if you dont like a pic just do the setting where you can approve tags first. if the pic stays up on their own facebook who cares if only your mutual friends can see it? its just what you look like, unflattering or not! we live in such a vain society and people take bookface way too seriously.
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1. You can untag yourself.
2. not being on facebook doesn’t mean people are going to stop posting pics of you, you’ll just be oblivious, so you won’t even be able to ask people to take them down, or explain them, or whatever. They will be up without you being able to ‘curate’ them.
3. For all those people below whinging about Facebook – don’t use it! For some of us it has had lots of benefits, like allowing us to keep in contact with people, reconnecting with people…because, yes, our lives are increasingly busy, complicated, we travel a lot – things like this are a massive help. Dont like it? Then get off it!
4. Re.. privacy settings and ‘badvertising’ – this is the price of free content and tools! Internet companies aren’t set up to give you free entertainment. e.g. Mamamia!
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I quit FB too. For me, Facebook equals the death of civility.
Same reason as a few others. I don’t like how you don’t know about anything unless you are on FB. “Oh I invited you on FB, didn’t you see?” “Oh, I put I am pregnant on FB, didn’t you see?” etc etc
UGH.
I also found that like PP’s – I always knew EXACTLY what was happening in people’s lives so no need to contact them for by phone and just have a chat and catch up. KWIM?
One last gripe, if we are not friends after TWENTY YEARS since high school, there was a reason.
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My brother also quit FB and he had over 1000 “friends” . His reasoning was that he was finding when he caught up with people he knew all their news and there was no surprises, I thought it was strange at the time but now its making sense, especially when I met a mate who’s not on FB and she had so much to tell me, we sat for hours going over the last month of our lives, it really was lovely.
My bro also has this other theory about big companies and government’s having too much of our information online and using it to target advertising and he worries about where this might lead to in the future …..or something like that, my eyes sort of glaze over at the mention of CIA and privacy policies!!
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I can see the benefits of targeted advertising – it’s not as evil as it can be made out to be, I mean the fact is we are going to see ads on FB and similar sites no matter what, so I’d rateher see ones that are ‘targeted’ to me rather than one about a product/service that is not of interest to me
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I was happy to facebook when there were no images, but then people started tagging and that was the beginning of the end. I’m much happier without facebook.
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I really don’t like it when people post photos of children that aren’t their own! My brother has made it clear to us that he does not want us posting photos of his daughter, but his SIL ignores him and not only posts to her public Facebook profile (she has no privacy settings enabled) but also to her instagram account (also public). Drives me mental because I know how private my brother is! She also happily announced my nieces name before she was even born- something my SIL wanted to keep within the family before the birth!
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I wouldn’t put bad photos up on purpose – in public view – but then people are always more critical of pics of themselves! I have put up messy party photos before – but i made them restricted to the people who were there on the night – and messaged everyone so they knew who could see them… oh and always ask parents before putting up any pics of their kids..
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I also have been seriously considering getting rid of facebook.. I mean talk about the ultimate procrastinating phenomenon – scrolling through hundreds of pointless status updates, whining, selfies (though mind you these rather amuse me), amazing exotic getaway albums and other boring pointless shit! I mean what is with our obsession with sharing everything with hundreds of people we call our “friends”. And then in addition there is issues with “professionalism” and privacy. On the flip-side i suppose there is the fear of missing out on some extraordinary piece of information!! Oh the dilemmas we face these days!! Anyone else in my boat and seriously contemplating jumping ship?
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GAH!!! At my age and with my friends this just doesn’t happen. However, I really worry for my children
I see it happening with my younger cousins: inappropriate and unflattering photos, constantly. My cousin once posted a whole album (it was something like 30 photos) of her friend competing in a wet t-shirt competition while clearly very drunk on a cruise. They are still friends, which I can’t believe.
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Facebook sucks. Sucks a lot.
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I respect the people in my life too much to be a bitch when tagging photos.
I rarely post photos of my family – and when I do will delete them after a few weeks. I don’t post photos of any family/friends who are not on facebook.
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Thankyou Linda! On behalf of friends who aren’t on fb.
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Haha – I decided this when I logged on one day years ago and saw a photo of my mum which her cousin had posted. Nice photo, but mum was never going to see it, and I realised that no one else should’ve been able to see it either.
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Ex-Facebook user, I was thinking the same thing! I gave up Facebook about three months ago or more. It was only the other day it occurred to me that despite not being on Facebook it doesn’t mean I WILL NOT be on Facebook. I was horrified by this realisation. Although I realise in this digital age we can not control the online environment as much as we’d like. I just need to trust my friends and family. It’s unfortunate that we now have to be quite explicit about how we want our photos to be used.
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I probably would have cared when I was a single teenager but to be perfectly honest if other people put up ugly photos of me now I couldn’t care less.
Possibly this might be because I’m not really an image conscious person – not into fashion, will happily go out of the house without makeup, don’t dye my hair as yet etc etc. I also can’t see any of my friends deliberately putting up a bad photo of me anyway. Maybe it depends a bit on the people you hang out with.
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I was tagged once in a friend’s wedding. She was being nice and obviously wanted to share some pics.
Anyway, I was 5 months pregnant and wearing braces at the time and I thought I looked ok when I went out.
Joking! I felt like a pregnant goddess who if touched would project the fabulousness onto anyone daring enough to look at my belly!
Turns out I looked absolutely shocking and like a huge cow that had massive arms and a mouth full more metal than teeth.
Never did I untag so quickly in my life!
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Oh I can totally relate to this. One of my old friends from my first year at uni would go to an event and take a hundred photos of the night and then upload them all to facebook the next day. She would always post unflattering photo’s of everyone when they were drunk, wearing a skimpy outfit, first thing in the morning or just looking like shit generally. When I or others would ask her to take them down because we had family or people we worked with seeing them she said ‘they’ll get over it’ and refuse to. I’m not friends with her anymore (on facebook or in life) but it annoys me that there are personal photo’s of me out there without my permission that I no longer have any control over.
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Oh this happened to me. A few years ago my friends and I went to a fancy dress party
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There are more photos of me online than anyone needs. I don’t care who posts what of me, as long as my husband is OK with them (as he’s a teacher, and therefore what is out there of me reflects on him).
My brother has requested I post no photos of him and not tag him in things or invite him to things over Facebook. I have complied. I now have a rather large selection of friends (mostly online, admittedly) who don’t actually know I have a brother.
It’s funny, these days it’s almost like if it’s not on facebook/twitter – it didn’t happen. Including having a sibling
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Ha, my friend once posted a group photo (of three) in which I was wearing a strapless top that was slightly too big for me (fell in love with it in a sale and was determined to make it work) and it had, um, slipped down a bit. Apparently she hadn’t noticed and I got onto her pretty quickly, but ugh! To this day I wonder how many of our mutual friends saw.
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But if you’re not on Facebook, that doesn’t stop photos of you being posted by friends and everyone seeing them (friendship circles do overlap a lot). I was absolutely shocked how many photos of there were of me and my family on facebook when I finally gave in and joined up late last year. Not one person had asked permission to post a photo that included one of us.
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Yep and that’s a serious problem! I’m not on fb anymore but photos of me, my husband, our dog, even our bloody backyard have been posted on fb. Infuriating.
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What irks me is that I can never EVER tell which photos people will or won’t approve of themselves… To me – my friends and family are BEAUTIFUL… I wouldn’t upload hideous pics obviosuly, but if they aren’t captured on the right angle or lighting… then I have done a bad thing. Sigh.
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I have never considered ever putting up an unflattering photo of a friend, recently we had a semi school reunion and I took a photo that turned out to be the worse possible angle of the most popular girl in high school…binned it straight away probably because I knew other would have loved to have seen it posted
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A dear friend of mine untags herself out of almost every photo – I always think I only put up gorgeous photos of my friends! Oh, and yup, have a friend who aaalllways puts up unflattering photos of other ladies, with her looking lovely.
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Am I missing something? How does not having Facebook anymore stop horrible photos of you being posted? Doesn’t it just mean, they can still be posted but you just can’t see them? Like putting your head in the sand?
Am I missing a step here?
Also, people need to realise that anyone can take any photo of you that they want and they can put it anywhere on the net that they want and there is nothing you can do about it.
So long as they are not using it to make an income out of your image, you have no rights at all. Same goes for your kids. Anyone can go to the beach, snap photos of you and your kids in your swimmers and post them for the world to see.
There is no right to privacy in Australia. the only exception to this is on private property. Your neighbour can even photograph you in your backyard in the nude and post your photo on the net. Sorry folks but you have little to no rights when it comes to how you control your image.
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If you’re not on facebook they can’t tag you in the photo. But, you can set your privacy so that you can approve all tags of you before they go live anyway.
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But the photo is still there right?
and they can write your name under the photo right?
There will just not be a hyperlink to your Facebook account.
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It doesn’t! Not at all. This photo biz wasn’t why I quit FB, but it was certainly one of the reasons I realised it wasn’t for me. Am sure there’s still plenty of gnarly photos of me on their, but out of sight, out of mind.
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just make sure your friends are uglier/fatter than you.. problem solved.
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Wow…you sound like a lovely person.
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Hey MM how come some of my longer comments lately are going into spam but shorter ones aren’t? I have a shorter one up below but my longer one just went into spam?
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my comment was deleted because all I said was: “Sisterhood? What sisterhood?”
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Hmmmm. Sometimes spam filter gets over excited!!! Sorry!
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A friend recently printed out some photos of me from her wedding and sent them to me. I’ve never looked so disgusting in my life! I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who looked disgusting – bad photographer or something. I don’t know. She looked great, though.
I ripped them up and threw them away – then sent her a text to thank her for the photos (I didn’t mention the ripping up and throwing away part). I honestly think she meant to do the right thing by sending everyone printed photos of themselves at her wedding. Unfortunately, they were just REALLY lousy photos!
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Who are all these people having these problems on Facebook? Annoying racist statuses, tagging people in ugly photos, stealing your thunder by announcing your news etc etc.
A bigger question is WHY ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH THESE PEOPLE!
I have NONE of these issues. I have about 60 Facebook friends, all of whom are my genuine friends. They are my friends because they are decent people and wouldn’t do anything like announce my engagement or deliberately post an ugly photo.
The worst issue I have is one of my 60 posts passive aggressive stuff about her love life every now and then (which is actually kinda funny) and another plays too many games and sends too many invitations. If you are having the problems that I’ve seen come up on MM – racism, sexism, ugly photos etc then you need to look at your friends, not at the phenomenon itself.
When Facebook first came out it was a thrill to add everyone you knew. When I was younger and at uni most friend lists ballooned out to the hundreds. Now I would have thought most people had gotten over that initial ‘wow, ex colleague who I haven’t seen in 5 years is on here!’ and trimmed their lists carefully.
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I figure unless I have the persons ok, I won’t post a photo. Seems easier.
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Ohhh, embrace the bad photo!
I can’t help but laugh in recognition at this post – I most definitely have the vanity radar for a bad photo, but bless my mates to pieces, they are just hysterical when a fugly photo surfaces of any of us. Example:
1. It was Chirstmas in London, the Heathrow injection had struck, and I was sharing the love – joyfully hugging all with my X-mas knitted cardiganed self and smiling my chubby little face off.
2. I sat on the lap of my large, rugby playing mate, wrapped an arm backwards in a hug (which more closely resembled a head lock), looked down (rookie error!) and smiled for the camera.
3. Result! One faaaaabulous photo where I managed to give myself amazing bingo wing plus more chins than one woman should ever rightfully stake a claim to, along with a lovely Christmas flush.
My friend who took the photo very guiltily told me it was bad, should be deleted, then giggled at just how terrible it was. I demanded to look before she dare delete it, and almost wet my pants laughing upon viewing it. We passed the camera around the table of 20 (mixed sexes, ages 18 – 60), and then embarked on an all-out, no-holds-barred competition to beat my horrendous portrait. And bless, didn’t my friends come to the double-chin party with all guns blazing! (Not to mention nostrils aflare and eyebrows a-wagging).
There is power in a bad photo – to have my friends celebrate my un-photogenic moment by sharing their own somehow felt so genuine – and I realised, quite often in person I must appear like this (rather than the good-angle, posed portrait of myself I present to the world online). And they still love me none-the-less!
I love that bad photo, and it is on facebook…. (ahem. In a private album. Shared only with those present that Christmas. Hello vanity!). Don’t reject the bad photo, claim it and love it (and bless the friend who directs the lens gently in your direction). xx
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The glass is always half full, love your attitude!
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I miss seeing more bad shots. The good ol days where you only had 24 photos and it cost a bomb to process them so you kept them all.
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“I love that bad photo, and it is on facebook…. (ahem. In a private album. Shared only with those present that Christmas. Hello vanity!). Don’t reject the bad photo, claim it and love it (and bless the friend who directs the lens gently in your direction). xx”
As long as it is in a ‘private’ album, right?
I wonder if you enthusiasm would be the same if the ‘bad’ photo of you was tagged and/or in a ‘public’ album…
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Ohhh K, pointing out my inconsistency… shame on you for bringing it to light! You are right though.
But really, my post didn’t wax lyrical about the joys of sharing on facebook – but more the joy of sharing that ‘bad’ photo experience with people who were happy to celebrate all of me, and join in with horse-ugly laughing photos of themselves.
What I wanted to challenge was why an ugly shot of us is a ‘bad’ photo? I was deliriously happy and sharing a hug with a friend – I looked ugly, but the emotion in the photo was fabulous.
I guess my overall point is – what is the issue we have about a bad photo? I’d say we get hung up on the thought of being judged by the ugly photo. And as you pointed out, I’m obviously not free of this issue either, or my ugly photo would be posted publicly – but wouldn’t it be fabulous to care about experience captured in the photo rather than the way we look… one day maybe x
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Lordy, women are petty, and by the looks of it, soooo bored.
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I’m getting married soon and HATE the idea of people posting photos of me on Facebook on the day – part vanity, part a response to my more general feeling that people should be enjoying the event while it’s happening and not posting about it!
I’m considering somehow including a note in the order of service that we don’t want photos put up on Facebook, but I’m worried that would be very bridezilla of me and a bit over the top!
Has anyone seen this done?
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Good luck. I had a family member announce my engagement, the birth of my baby and post the first photos of my child on facebook before I had the chance to and another posted professional photos from our wedding before I had even seen them (she received the thank you card photo to be approved on my behalf while I was on my honeymoon). All I can suggest is remove the option for people to ‘tag’ you temporarily so any photos are at least not on your profile or temporarily deactivate your profile for the wedding.
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Oh! I hadn’t thought of deactivating my profile temporarily. Great idea! And maybe just post an FB message before you disappear explaining that photos can wait until your name is officially changed over!
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I had this stress-out as well. I didn’t explicitly have anything written down, but I spread the word that photos posted to facebook before I had the chance to do so would not be appreciated. I had one person who posted a few photos a couple of days later and they were fabulous and done with the best of intentions, so I was actually happy about it.
I have a friend who was posting photos of a couple AS they were getting married! They weren’t even married yet and photos were splashed all over the place. I actually messaged her and told her off about it. Very inconsiderate. I wanted to link this onto her page to be honest, she’s a huge offender – posting photos without even looking at them first!
Now I have my settings so that all tags have to be approved by me and only I can see photos tagged of me.
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I have the same angst for a different reason – we can’t invite everyone to the wedding, so are telling friends who don’t make the cut that it will be a very small wedding. Which it will be, but not small enough that the crowd there, if shown on FB, won’t make them go “hang on, she said it was mostly family only, look at all those friends there”. What to do? Agreed, telling people not to post makes you seem like a control freak. And yet … not telling risks pissing off friends who are not invited but who are, nevertheless, still friends and people I don’t want to offend. Any tips?
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I did this! I had a little note on the gift table saying that we think our photographer is so great that we want his to be the first photos we see so please refrain from posting on social media until we had his.. We had a photobucket account created and gave everyone the details and encouraged people to share their photos there..
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Not bridezilla at all, and I have a very very laidback approach to all this stuff and find many things bridezilla. It is perfectly reasonable to request people wait to post their own photos until you ok it. I wouldn’t go so far as to want to approve the photos others eventually put up, hopefully your friends would have general manners anyway and only put up nice ones, but a ‘hey can you wait until we put up the first official pics’ is totally reasonable.
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My friend was married recently and before the ceremony started the celebrant welcomed everyone, remind all to turn off phones and requested that no photos are to be put on social media without the permission of bride and groom, was done very politely and as far as I know was respected. You have every right to request this, its your day!
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That is a great way to do it. No one would be offended by a priest!
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Darling it’s your wedding ask what ever you like of the guests! Personally I would think that those are pics that should be first shared by the couple then I would put up my fav…..
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Anon, I asked my guests, bridal party, family, everyone not to post any photos of myself or my groom at our wedding – I just asked them verbally and got my MC to mention it at the reception.
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Thanks all for the great advice – lots of useful tips and I feel less like a bridezilla for worrying about this xo
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I have fallen victim to this many times – I now approve all tags on Facebook to avoid these embarrassing moments however this does not stop them from being on the internet forever!
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i’d kind of like to quit FB but the thing is, even if you’re not on there photos get posted of you, you just never see them and don’t get the chance to ask them to take them down!
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Exactly!
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I’ve got around this issue by going through my husband. We share the same concerns so he reaffirms our wish regarding no photos on Facebook.
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Competely agree – it seems like everyone out there has one of those so-called ‘friends’ who only feels good about themselves by making others look worse! Sad but true. And yes sometimes we’re just being insecure and our friends might truly think we look lovely in the pic – the problem is, once they’ve uploaded it onto the internet – that’s it – it’s there forever. I always think very carefully before uploading pics these days (I admit I wasn’t quite as cautious several years ago!) – I just wish all my friends would do the same!
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You know what? I can’t tell who would’ve wanted that second photo taken down! I think everyone in it looks amazing. I’m guessing because it’s her article that it must be Zoe – but she looks beautiful!
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Zoe, I can’t pick who veto-ed the pic, as the three of you ladies all look amazing to me… do tell!
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Snap! Didn’t see your post before I posted mine!
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This made me laugh but it’s so true. Sad, but true. I can’t believe that there are those who do it on purpose! I’ve never done it. But I possess that wretched affliction of having these gorgeous friends and I’m the rosy cheeked, smile like the Joker from Batman goofball…..and that’s just the pics I take (and never put up, lol) ….my profile pic is heavily photoshopped….as in, let’s make this appear it was supposed to be artsy fartsy and get as little of me in it….or just take a pic on an inanimate object, like a plastic spoon.
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Argh every womens worst nightmare
I had my husband’s cousin post ALOT of photos of me, friends and family from my hens party…lets just say it wasnt one of those high tea parties where all the women behave appropriately!
I didnt feel the need for these to be up for my husband, friends or god knows who to see so I asked her poiltely to take them down! Thankfully she did!
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Totally agree!!! I have a love/hate relationship with facebook. Post what you like about yourself, but be mindful about others – especially people not on facebook or photos of other people’s kids.
I have enabled the tool where facebook sends me a message to approve tags of me before it goes onto my timeline. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it’s something.
As for cameras on phones…..another love/hate relationship.
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Amen Anna! Another thing I hate is when friends post “Happy birthday my dear friend whom I love so much etc etc” I’m not even on facebook, just text me.
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I NEVER post a photo unless I am sure that everyone in it will be happy for others to see it, and if anyone ever asked me to take one down I wouldn’t hesitate in doing it.
I just don’t understand why anyone would do anything but that.
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