Please don’t tag me
I stare at the glowing white light of my computer screen mortified. Moments earlier I had been woken from sleep by Matt, “Phoebe! Wake up! Something has gone terribly wrong”, he says, “you need to see this”.
My mind is racing, running through a list of possible reasons he may have for disturbing me in the middle of a dream. “Is everything okay? What is it?”, I ask. He turns the laptop screen to me, it takes my blurry eyes a moment to adjust to the bright light and focus on the image staring out at me from the screen.
What I see is horrifying. A photo of Matt and I from a friend’s party, but not just any photo, this is the worst photo ever taken. I do not remember leaving the house looking like Rosie O’Donnell and Courtney Love’s hybrid offspring.
My skin is white, pasty and greasy and I am puffy and bloated like a marshmallow. The hairstyle I had taken an hour to perfect looks like the refuge centre for disadvantaged and abandoned wildlife creatures all knotted, dull and lifeless. And where is my neck? Did my abdomen get hungry and eat it?
Matt has not fared any better, one eye is half-shut and the other is completely closed. He has a crooked smile across his face and his neck is strained, making his head look like a football. If he were seen by the authorities lurking around a dark alleyway he would definitely be arrested.
This is not good.
Immediately I am wide awake, we click-through the next photo and it’s just as bad, so is the next one and the next one and the next one. We spiral out of control and begin to assess the damage. What time is it? How many people have been online and seen this in London and back home? What’s the time difference? Who was online and commenting at that time of day and for the love of God how do I get this off my profile immediately?
We are both mortified. The new version of Facebook has thrown me for a loop and I cannot find where to un-tag us, detach us from this mess of white skin and bad hair. I didn’t ask for a timeline, I never wanted a timeline, but Zuckerberg and his band of minions have forced it on me and now I can’t use the darned thing. I knew I should’ve worn a dress with capped sleeves to that party, it was too soon to go strap-less.
I quickly open Google and type in the magic words ‘how do I un-tag photos on Facebook’. We are not alone, in 0.17 seconds Google has produced 225,000 results on the subject.
My fingers cannot work quick enough as I frantically remove them from my timeline and un-tag myself. Why is Facebook asking me so many questions? Just get them down! Immediately! The only thing you need to know, Facebook, is that this is an emergency.
Having successfully removed the photos from my timeline and deleted all tags I go into damage control mode. I have spent a considerable amount of time building a reputation of not looking like a wounded albino wilder beast to my Facebook friends. All my hard work has been shattered in a matter of hours.
I have dedicated large amounts of my time to carefully selecting only the most flattering, slimming, grease-free photos of myself to share with the world-wide web. Prior to this incident my friends had thought of me as a tanned, slim and care free person with excellent hair lounging around the Mediterranean.
This most recent series of photographs, and the last image of me etched into their minds, paints a picture of the Yeti on heat, squeezed into a tube sock like a stuffed ham, gorging itself on wine and cake.
My Facebook profile has quickly gone from a revered homage to my travel exploits as a good-looking, thin person to a public wall of shame powered by bingo wings and binge eating.
There was a time when attending a house party, wedding or your favourite pub/club on a night out was a care free experience, but that was B.F (Before Facebook). Now, after a night out, you live in fear.
You wake up in the morning and login immediately to see who has been uploading photos. The first 24 hours after a night out are critical, this is the time when they will upload and this is the time when they will tag.
When it comes to Facebook, your friends have no mercy. In fact the more shameful, exposing and degrading the photo the more your chances of being tagged increase.
Waking up to face a hangover and trying to work out if you were legally under the limit yet so you could drive to McDonald’s by 10:30am used to be your biggest problem. Now, you wake up and cringe as the traumatising and confusing events of the night before are splayed across your news feed in 13-inch, 1.8GHz, intel core duo processed high-definition goodness for 541 of your closest friends to see.
There is a reason that nobody has a good, clear shot of the Yeti, my friends and quite simply, it’s because it’s not a pretty sight. So afford me the same privilege, steer clear of me with your 500 optical macro zoom at parties and please, don’t tag me.
littlegreybox.
22 Comments on “Please don’t tag me”
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What is littlegreybox?
littlegreybox is a meeting point of humorous perspective, food and travel experiences and my life journey. It's my outlet, a source of inspiration and a way to share and connect with people around the world.
Hahaha. I love that line about your abdomen eating your neck. The worst is when you are tagged in a horrendous photo of you and a friend but your friend looks flawless.
I know!! And then you’re friend is like ‘don’t be silly you look goegeous’… I’m well aware I look like a sushi roll. Clearly they have just put it up because it’s a great shot of them!!!
I am generally very careful with pictures I put up because I don’t want a case of creative camera revenge coming my way :O
But I have noticed people only ever ‘vet’ photos of themselves. They don’t seem to notice the emerging monster that sometimes appears in their friends. :P
Excellent post! Loved it, especially your descriptions. I HATE the function on Facebook for people to upload pix that you’d rather no one else see. There should be a tool that asks your permission beforehand! I guess we all know now how celebs feel…
There IS a way – in your privacy settings – you can request to review ALL posts that Tag you – and they are not published until you say OK.
I use it for everything because my wall was becoming the equivalent of the junk drawer where all the stuff you never need see appeared.
This is exactly the reason that i recently changed my FB settings so that I must approve any tagging of myself before it goes public. Toooooo many over-exposed eyes-half-closed unflattering I-can’t-really-be-that-fat photos taken by “friends”.
Dear Littlegrey,
EVERY part of this resonated with me. I, too, am quite the picky pickster when it comes to displaying myself on Facebook.
One day, I was horrified to find that an in-law (who has never ever liked me) tagged me in the most horrific pictures known to my picture history.
I have a feeling, she caught me stuffing me face with wedding cake..and laughed maniacally..then snapped with INTENT TO EMBARASS on Facebook.
Diabolical.
And of course not all have that intention:)
But, you can go to your privacy settings, and go to Timeline and Tagging.
Go to EDIT SETTINGS.
Then, look down on the list, and there is an option for Review posts I am tagged in. Put that ON, and then you will be notified before stuff shows up on your Timeline*:)
ummm. i seem to remember a certain someone… who shall remain nameless, uploading some pretty average pics of me at Jo’s hens night… nuff said…. :)
Once I saw wedding pictures posted by a bridesmaid. The photos detailed them dressing for the wedding. The bride was a big girl. There was one photo in particular of 3 bridesmaids trying to button the back of her dress while she gripped a post with a pained look. They were actually STUFFING her into her dress. Which would have been fine, in private. But her bridesmaid posted the picture AND tagged her in it. I never found out if she knew her bridesmaid hated her. Timeline is a plague.
ahahahhahahaaaa!!! That is awful!! It IS the plague!
I used to object to these kinds of random photos of me, but then I realized that that is, in fact, what I really looked like.
muy bueno :D There is an option to make YOU the only one able to see your tagged pics…thats one of the first things I learned after being “tag sabotaged”, if it is good, you can always make it a profile pic later so everybody can see :D
That way at least you minimize the damage and you can live without fear…
LOL, I loved this article :-) But…this is why I don’t “party”. God only knows what I’d get into :-) and IT WOULD be all over facebook!
haha excelent post on something quite a few people are struggling with I guess. Nobody likes to be surprised, waking up to a photo on their Facebook wall looking like they have been hit by truck or something. Yet, friends always seem to pick just those photographs to upload….
I never have these kinds of problems for some reason? Probably because I don’t have a lot of friends, and I don’t really go out, people don’t take pics of me to put on facebook.
But if all else fails I have the option on that I need to approve every tag first.
I concur with all your insights! Beware facebook! I am really enjoying your fun style of writing.
Wow, thank you so much :)
I discovered you on Freshly Pressed one day, so it’s a great way to get new readers. Congratulations on being featured there.
Thank you! It really is a great way to get your blog noticed. Thanks for the support!
Its awful isn’t it. The never-ending cyber nightmare where there are no hiding places. And there’s always some bright spark from your distant past who can find another awful photo to publish for the world to see. arrrrrhghghghghg
haha this is superb. I used to be the same, would carefully curate my fb albums, then I remembered that my friend see me in real life, so I just let my inner bush pig run free.
Brilliant! It was amazing when you could simply go out, and if you happened to get very drunk or it rained so you looked like a drowned rat it wouldn’t matter in the slightest! Now, it’s all over Facebook with people tagging you in these awful pictures. One of my most horrific ones was made into a meme for fucks sake!