I have a friend whose grandmother accidentally started a Facebook live from within her handbag that went for more than 25 minutes.
A grandchild ended up calling her, desperately, begging her on behalf of her entire family to make it stop.
Another friend’s mum often shares memes from Neo Nazi Australia with no comment, and as far as anyone knows she is not a Neo Nazi. No one knows how she found that page.
My own mum posts Facebook statuses that were definitely intended to be private messages and then gets ruthlessly trolled (by… me).
Once she shared a status about how she'd hooked up her 'i tunes blue tooth laptop' (which she definitely did not do all on her own) and then added some bizarre song lyrics with precisely no context.
Wtf is an i tunes blue tooth laptop and no stopping you from... what?
She's out of control and we never should have let it get this bad.
But last night, something happened that was so horrific I tried to hack into her Facebook account to delete it and WHY ISN'T HER PASSWORD HER BIRTHDAY ANYMORE WHO TAUGHT HER TO CHANGE IT.
As soon as I saw the notification, 'Mummy Stephens tagged you in a post', I was wary. When did she learn to tag? And did she know it was publ...
Oh.
Mum had tagged me in the wedding photos of a girl I went to school with 11 years ago.
No.
That's not what we do.
AND FOR WHY?
The picture was of the bride and groom and approximately 30 other people. There were no other comments yet. Just the words: Jessie Stephens.
That one like is from me who was desperately trying to mitigate the situation.
There was only one solution.
I was going to have to change my name, grow a beard and move to Andorra where no one knew about my history. I'd still have flashbacks as I tried to sleep at night, sure, but I could make new friends, find a new family. Start fresh.
But as my name sat there, under a photo of 29 people I didn't know and a girl I graduated with in 2008, I knew I had to do something immediately.
I sent her a message, explaining what had happened.
Yes, my mum, who is a teacher and on school holidays so has a little too much time on her hands at the moment had tagged me in a photo deep within her wedding photo album and I was very sorry. I made sure to say congratulations, because in all honesty, it looked like a great wedding. And, yes, I'd stalked the rest of the album while I was there.
She implicitly understood.
It doesn't make up for the fact that a Facebook algorithm which now privileges content by f*cking family and f*cking friends means that everyone I've ever met has seen my full name under this woman's wedding photo.
Nothing will ever make that okay.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised something.
Guys.
I reckon she knows.
And she's trolling me.
Touche.
But the joke is on her. Because Mummy Stephens has been officially 'reported' for inappropriate behaviour.
Top Comments
Somehow instead of clicking the like button like everyone else, my mum has a giant black hand doing a thumbs up, complete with gold bracelet and knuckle dusters that goes in the comments section. That emoji isn’t even on my phone... where does she get it from???
Hahaha your mum’s embarrassment points are nothing compared to my mum! Mum has consistently kept us all in hysterics since joining social media. She once seriously commented on my godfather’s 5 year old FB memory of a dinner at home... “why weren’t we invited, cheers” so snarky! She has posted in all sincerity, that meme from Home Alone about being on the lookout for 2 holiday robbers. She also comments embarrassingly on pictures that my daughter’s friends have posted on their own pages & tagged her in, one comment was “when are you coming to see Nana?” another was “you have time to Facebook but not to call your nana!” She did a live video (that she thought was in a private message to me) of her & my dad walking around their resort to show us where she was, however she forgot to swap the camera around and all everyone saw was her & dad as they walked around for 5 minutes. She’s an absolute cracker!