Why do grown women post photos of social events?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a circle jerk of vacuous likes. I don't see the posts, but if I were to see you all thirsty for attention posting about going to some crap restaurant or a "vaca" when I can go to Italy and have real dining experiences, I just feel bad for you.

The first page poster nailed it-- it's pathetic. Looking for the attention and second, what you define as "fancy" or a "vacation". Ok, Olive Garden.

lol if you are so secure in your position to never have any worries like these women trying to find a bit of joy in experiences that you find so poor and pathetic….then why are you so incapable of indifference to them, never mind compassion? If you’re so high up, where did you lose your noblesse oblige

[Anonymous]

I am confused by the way people seem to think that not posting these photos to social media somehow takes the joy out of the event itself or makes it impossible to take photos at all?

I have a very active social life and many photos of my friends and I don't post any of them to social media because it seems tacky. I do not feel deprived in any way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because some of us use Facebook as our diaries and photo albums. That is all. Judge away: it’s not going to change. I love the convenience

Why not let Google photos give you “this time last year” photo montages then? Or post the pictures with captions to a private or shared folder? Honest question. Because when I scroll FB I often see people doing as you do and they even say (cringe) “dear diary- here are some November moments for the books! I know I’ll love seeing these memories roll around next year!” Like, why make it public?

[Anonymous]

I am not triggered by photos of people out with friends but I really struggle, especially this time of year, when people post a lot of photos of their extended families celebrating holidays together. That's not something I have and it can be hard during the holidays. I am especially triggered by photos of grandparents with their grandkids, as it not only makes me feel sad about what I don't have but makes me feel both sad and guilty that my kids also dont' have it.

I solve this by not really using social media. It's hard because my kids' school and many of their activities require you follow at least one social media account. I use Instagram because it's the one where it's easiest to limit what I follow, so I don't wind up seeing other stuff on there. I also only use it on a browser on my laptop, never on my phone.

I totally feel for people who see other people's highlights on social media and struggle with the negative feelings it prompts. Increasingly I think social media is primarily for certain kinds of people who don't have any grief of sadness in their lives. For the rest of us, it's not so good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because some of us use Facebook as our diaries and photo albums. That is all. Judge away: it’s not going to change. I love the convenience

Why not let Google photos give you “this time last year” photo montages then? Or post the pictures with captions to a private or shared folder? Honest question. Because when I scroll FB I often see people doing as you do and they even say (cringe) “dear diary- here are some November moments for the books! I know I’ll love seeing these memories roll around next year!” Like, why make it public?

We know why. That’s why I’m glad to hear that Gen Z is moving past social media being a thing they do to self promote vs a place they visit to see what content creators have put out. Some people are still self promoting, but most aren’t feeling like they have to participate by sharing their own personal information. Plus they have seen how this can all go wrong and have learned from other’s past mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because some of us use Facebook as our diaries and photo albums. That is all. Judge away: it’s not going to change. I love the convenience

Why not let Google photos give you “this time last year” photo montages then? Or post the pictures with captions to a private or shared folder? Honest question. Because when I scroll FB I often see people doing as you do and they even say (cringe) “dear diary- here are some November moments for the books! I know I’ll love seeing these memories roll around next year!” Like, why make it public?

I too am baffled when people post things like "October photo dump" and then it's like 40 photos of them, their kids, and every social outing from that month. It doesn't trigger me or make me feel left out, I just don't understand it. Is this really the best way to organize and compile photos from your life?

But I'm also just fundamentally baffled by anyone who posts tons of photos of their kids online or gives a huge number of their photos to social media sites where they will 100% use them in creepy ways (like by creating a profile of your child before they are even old enough to have accounts, plumbing your photos for info about you as a consumer, etc.). I only participate in social media to the degree that work, school, etc. require it so I can fully participate. It has never occurred to me to share tons of personal photos of my family or friends with them? Seems bad but you do you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes feel the same knee-jerk reaction when I see these types of posts, OP, but I also ask myself, what is an appropriate use of "social" media? What are people allowed to share?

Before "social media", only "Society" people issued public press releases about their social life. Everyone else shared information with people who had a relevant interest.

Even the most oblivious of us can probably agree the landscape has changed since the society pages. My point to people who get upset about these things is that I don't believe the burden is on the sharer to edit their content. Social media can be a wasteland of triggers and distress, and you'll never be able to control what people put out there (online or elsewhere); that's a pretty key lesson to learn. I don't share much of anything because I was taught in elementary school that you don't talk about the birthday party with your classmates who weren't invited. You can, however, limit your follows to people who share relevant interests, you can hide people whose updates you don't wish to see, you can unfriend/unfollow, or you can choose to stay offline. You can do all this without asking or expecting anything of anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had 2 close friends pass away and 1 I have not picture of us together, the other I have 1 because I posted it on FB.

Insta and FB help me see what my friends and family are doing... my family is very large and impossible to track... just found out my nephew moved from instagram post. I have over 25 nieces and nephews.

I enjoy seeing them and looking at them and so do my friends.

I'm not doing anything that amazing so no need to be jealous.

I also print a photo album yearly from it.

why does anybody take pictures? Why do cameras even exist?

Instagram/Facebook are not good ways to share photos with friends and family unless profiles are limited to those people. Many people's accounts are either public or they are connected to a lot more people than just friends or family, so when you post you are sending that photo to a huge community of people including colleagues, old classmates, neighbors, etc. People who don't really need that info. This is the technological equivalent of distributing your personal photos in the town square to anyone you encounter. Most of those people don't need to see those photos.

It is very easy in this day and age to share photos with just friends and family, via locked down social media accounts or simply using text. That is what many of us do in order to preserve privacy and also to prevent the kind of brag-sharing people are talking about on this thread.

If you didn't know your nephew moved until he posted about it on Instagram, you are not very close and he likely did not care if you knew.

Photo's do not go to anybody that does not choose to have that content go to them. If you don't want to see it don't follow or friend. You can choose to block or not see this content anymore.

Of course I'm not close to my 25+ nephews but now that he lives 10 minutes form my house he comes over for dinner a few times a month or meet us for drinks... that's how life works you can't be close to everybody all the time but you can when you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had 2 close friends pass away and 1 I have not picture of us together, the other I have 1 because I posted it on FB.

Insta and FB help me see what my friends and family are doing... my family is very large and impossible to track... just found out my nephew moved from instagram post. I have over 25 nieces and nephews.

I enjoy seeing them and looking at them and so do my friends.

I'm not doing anything that amazing so no need to be jealous.

I also print a photo album yearly from it.

why does anybody take pictures? Why do cameras even exist?

The question asked wasn’t why do people take pictures. The question asked was why does someone take a picture and post it (share it) with people who weren’t at the event.

Same reason people take pictures in general, to remember. You don't have to look at pictures on my SM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had 2 close friends pass away and 1 I have not picture of us together, the other I have 1 because I posted it on FB.

Insta and FB help me see what my friends and family are doing... my family is very large and impossible to track... just found out my nephew moved from instagram post. I have over 25 nieces and nephews.

I enjoy seeing them and looking at them and so do my friends.

I'm not doing anything that amazing so no need to be jealous.

I also print a photo album yearly from it.

why does anybody take pictures? Why do cameras even exist?

I do all this on Shutterfly and don't need to share any of it. Shutterfly can back up all my photos and make albums. I don't need my friends, family and old coworkers to bear witness to my photo preservation.

I don't "need" anybody to bear witness but some of my friends like to and I like to see their pictures. You get to choose what you see and if you don't want that content control your own feed.

I love to see what people are up to so I want to see pictures of events I did not go to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a circle jerk of vacuous likes. I don't see the posts, but if I were to see you all thirsty for attention posting about going to some crap restaurant or a "vaca" when I can go to Italy and have real dining experiences, I just feel bad for you.

The first page poster nailed it-- it's pathetic. Looking for the attention and second, what you define as "fancy" or a "vacation". Ok, Olive Garden.

lol if you are so secure in your position to never have any worries like these women trying to find a bit of joy in experiences that you find so poor and pathetic….then why are you so incapable of indifference to them, never mind compassion? If you’re so high up, where did you lose your noblesse oblige

Good question, and should be a whole thread on this.
We are incredibly generous. Anonymously, to our schools and we do invite friends to our various country clubs and host generously. That said, we are not the wealthiest in our circle by.far. I'm still waiting for them to use their noblesse oblige on ME and take me in their private jets somewhere pretty great. To bring it full circle, I don't think these people are on SM. They don't talk about "posts" when we are socializing IRL. They don't pose for photos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those reasons and probably several others.

It's pathetic. Whatever.

+1 and it seems like most people have woken up and realized how stupid it is.

I have noticed this too. It's great.

Imagine being so miserable and pathetic that a picture of your friends having a good time bothers you this much. Are you jealous?

DP. It is perfectly normal to feel jealous or left out when presented with a photo of people from your community having fun together. It need not be a particularly intense feeling and most people move on from it easily, but it's a normal and human response because humans are social creatures whose security is dependent on belonging in a community. A photo like that is likely to prompt a temporary (and primal) fear that the individual may not be securely part of the group. Most people will remember that, actually, they are securely part of the community via other means and move on. But that initial pang of jealousy or, more accurately, fear, is pretty common and normal. If someone cannot move on, it may be because they do not have secure belonging in a community, in which case their fear is real and understandable, not something to be criticized and derided.

The greater question is what compels people to post such photos to public feeds? I believe it is related to the same fear. People post these photos as a way of asserting their belonging in the community. They may be particularly compelled to post photos that show them in high status settings or with high status people, as a self-protective way of showing how embedded they are. In this case, posting the photo is actually done, on some level, to provoke jealous and fear from people who may be further from the inside, high status parts of the community. Thus the feeling of jealous/fear that many people feel when seeing these photos is actually the intended effect the poster hopes it to have.

Your choice of the words "miserable" and "pathetic" -- exclusionary words that emphasize the low and outsider status of the person to whom you are talking -- indicate that this is a behavior you participate in and that it is very much about asserting your belonging over that of others when you do so.

Too. Many. Words. Wut.

Some ideas require explanation. This is a serious conversation, there is some nuance.

No, hun. This is not a serious conversation. You talk too much. OMG you gave us MOAR WORDS.

Learn how to make your point without writing a novel.

[Anonymous]

It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I don’t do it, but I have a really active social life and I love fashion and beauty and so I do still love dressing up and sometimes taking pictures. I don’t post them but I couldn’t care less if other people do. I also don’t brag about my kids and won’t be participating in these random college wars. And I don’t compete in general in conversation in life. These other things are honestly inescapable in this area and are far more toxic and damaging than some 30 year olds that post social pics. Also, if people want to post their highlight reel and it makes you feel jealous, either get perspective or get a different life than the one you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to do this and have stopped. I generally will ask myself before posting, "Who is the audience for this/why am I posting this?"

Sometimes there is a good reason. But often it is unnecessary and potential hurtful to people who were not included in the gathering for whatever reason.

I used to be a part of a group of women (grew apart due to geography) where posts like this caused so much drama over who was or wasn't included, why so and so posts about outings with Larla but not Linda, etc. And as a PP said, it becomes a circle jerk or likes or reposts. It was toxic and not behavior that 30-40 something women should be modeling for their own kids.

This! I stopped posting on social media four years ago and this is what did it it. Ask yourself, who is this really for?

Who's gonna tell her?

[Anonymous]

I don’t post anything really personal anymore for many reasons.. i use social media for fundraising and advocating for marginalized people… but i also made a conscious decision not to post anything that could make someone feel left out, trigger their trauma, etc. I don’t need to do that- I have private albums to store memories and can personally send things to relevant people when needed.