Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2

AIBU?

To feel uncomfortable when people who have passed away are added to facebook photos

26 replies

Mollydoggerson · 07/10/2013 14:38

The facebook culture of remembering those who have passed by adding their name or tagging them to photos which they are not in seems so unsettling to me. It makes me feel disheartened and uncomfortable when I see it. I know we all grieve differeently but it feels like the person doing the tagging is forcing everyone else to grieve in the same way.

I suppose it comes down to personal choice. I can understand some bereavement related items being posted on facebook, but I cannot understand this pretense that someone is always with us, we wouldn't continue listing a person who has passed away in a phonebook as if they are still contactable, why do we tag people who have passed away. It seems an unhealthy approach to grieving, refusing to let someone go.

OP posts:

Report

TattyDevine · 07/10/2013 14:39

Doesn't bother me at all.

LeoTheLateBloomer · 07/10/2013 14:40

I know we all grieve differeently - < this

we wouldn't continue listing a person who has passed away in a phonebook as if they are still contactable - I still have both my grandfathers' phone numbers in my phone even though one died over a decade ago and the other 4 years ago. I just can't bring myself to delete them.

Like you say, people grieve in different ways.

AngelsLieToKeepControl · 07/10/2013 14:44

Starting a thread to criticise the way some people choose to grieve, and especially saying that it is unhealthy, isn't a very good, or a very sensitive move. If you don't like it, don't do it, just ignore/block/defriend those who do if you feel so strongly.

NotTwelve · 07/10/2013 14:45

YANBU to feel uncomfortable but you YABU to judge how people choose to grieve.

StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes · 07/10/2013 14:46

one of the hardest things for me after my dad died was deleting his (unused) mobile number from my phone, I could have left it but every time I saw it it made me sad too.

BrianTheMole · 07/10/2013 14:48

I don't have a problem with it. I have a friend who died, his profile is still on fb. We use it as a meeting place to share photos and stories. I like having it there.

TheFallenNinja · 07/10/2013 14:50

The anti Facebook nonsense has no ends.

SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter · 07/10/2013 14:52

It is terrible that grieving people are making you feel disheartened and uncomfortable OP. They really should pull themselves together, stop being so selfish and remember: it's all about you.

LunaticFringe · 07/10/2013 14:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

phantomhairpuller · 07/10/2013 14:56

Here we go

Mollydoggerson · 07/10/2013 14:57

Saskia, I lost my father this year along with another relative and a family friend. I am grieving too along with the facebook connections. It's not all about me. I am totally aware of that, we all grieve at one time or another. Your tone is completely unnecessary.

OP posts:

ChippingInNeedsSleepAndCoffee · 07/10/2013 14:58

I'm a bit confused.

So, do you mean that if I died, then a while later my friends went out for a 'night out' they would 'tag' all the people in the photo and tag my name as well - as if I was part of the group who had gone on the night out?

CoffeeTea103 · 07/10/2013 14:58

People grieve in different ways. Yabu.

Mollydoggerson · 07/10/2013 15:02

Chipping, yes that sort of thing.

Adding the person who had died to photos, when that person isn't there as the photos were taken after their death.

OP posts:

SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter · 07/10/2013 15:15

Molly I've lost my father, brother and brother in law in the last two years, so I'm grieving too. I don't choose to do so by posting stuff on FB; if other people find it helps it's not my place to think they are doing it wrong.

I'm sorry if you feel my tone was unnecessary, but I feel the same about you criticising how other people grieve. It's a personal thing.

Mollydoggerson · 07/10/2013 15:17

Yes Saskia, you are right it is a personal thing.

Sorry for your losses.

OP posts:

Katienana · 07/10/2013 15:17

I've never seen anyone do that, but I would find it a bit strange.

SaggyIsHavingAPinkKitten · 07/10/2013 15:26

No. When someone is dead and gone they must be forgotten. Of course you shouldn't have to see this stuff!

SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter · 07/10/2013 15:34

Molly I'm sorry for your losses too. It's shit to lose people you care about. I suppose we all have to find a way to come to terms with it.

Faithless12 · 07/10/2013 15:41

I have my mums number on my phone still. I also moved her last message to me onto my current phone. I haven't looked at it in years...
We all do whats right for us.

SummerScone · 07/10/2013 15:55

YANBU to feel uncomfortable. I have never heard of this before, pretending someone is in a picture that isn't there? So creating a tag on a photo with my Dad's name on a photo of me and my Mum taken last week in order to make out that he is there when he died 5 years ago?

I am trying to process this... it's something I had never thought of doing and personally I wouldn't find it consoling.

But I fully understand not wanting to delete a mobile phone number or answer machine message of someone who died and that's just as "irrational".

I guess Facebook has taken grieving to another level and who is to say it is any more or less valid then our "normal" rituals of laying flowers, lighting candles, raising a toast etc.

You would be unreasonable to make someone else feel bad for doing it but YANBU for feeling uncomfortable - you can't help that can you?

I was personally majorly offended when someone posted an actual photo of a friend who had died some years ago without any nod to the fact that she was dead. Also this person wasn't around to give her permission (Facebook wasn't even around then) so I thought that entirely inappropriate and said so.

ChippingInNeedsSleepAndCoffee · 07/10/2013 20:38

There are lots of things that people do when they are grieving that are very different to the way I handle grief and definitely aren't 'for me' - but to each their own and I can usually see why they 'get' from what they do. However, I just don't 'get' this?! But then, as I have often said in the past (about other things) other people don't have to 'get' it, just accept it is, what it is... on the other hand, if people started tagging say my Dad (who died) on photos and the photos popping up as though he had attended the party or whatever, that would massively upset me.

So, I don't know - is it 'right' to do that?

So glad I don't 'do' facebook.

Pickle131 · 07/10/2013 22:24

Molly I understand what you're saying and think YANBU at all to think this is odd, while realising yourself that people grieve differently. I think that tagging deceased friends and relatives is verging on insensitive because it's not private, and the person doing it isn't considering the feelings of shock or sadness other friends and relatives of the decreased might experience on seeing the name appear. On the other hand, while such reminders are momentarily painful, we don't tend to like it when nobody mentions that person ever, like they never existed. If you find it uncomfortable - after all, it's not true that the deceased was there - I'd be hiding that person's feed. I disagree with people who say it's none of your business.

TigerSwallowTail · 07/10/2013 23:00

I've never seen this but I agree that it is a bit strange. I wouldn't do it but I suppose it would be boring if we were all the same.

SummerScone · 08/10/2013 10:24

Yes Pickle131 I think you've hit the nail on the head of why I am a tad uncomfortable about it - it's how other people would feel about seeing it who wouldn't feel at all consoled by it.

Flip

1 2

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.