To Feel Angered by People Taking So Many Photos for the 'Gram...?

Hear hear. Every day it feels we're a step closer to a particularly creepy episode of Black Mirror. People are hollowing out right before our eyes. Anyone who hasn't noticed is delusional.

I agree op. I don’t like the naff shallowness of it and I also don’t like going somewhere to see something specific and then waiting an awkward amount of time uncomfortably watching someone take hundreds of shots before I can actually see the thing I’ve come to see.
even worse when it’s an insta parent and not only their kids are bored and fed up but my kids are too and wondering why we’ve come all this way just to wait for someone to finish posing.
it all feels so set up and I almost feel voyeuristic waiting for someone to cultivate their perfect candid shot which also ‘looks’ like a private and intimate moment.
its bloody weird and a bit Truman Show.

It's not just the youth of today

And I didn't realise there was an epidemic of mental health issues linked to taking a ridiculous amount of photos of yourself at the dawn of time

Oh chill out! Since the dawn of time people have been bemoaning the "youth of today" and getting nostalgic about times past.

Yes, people can be annoying and there are undoubtedly valid concerns to be had over social media and all that it entails... But is quietly getting furious and pontificating on how shallow everyone else is on some random forum any more virtuous or any less weird? 🤔

I feel the same as you OP, it makes me angry but I don’t really understand why.

I just tried to sit and properly think about it and I think for me it’s anger that people are wasting their lives and don’t realise how precious time and life actually is.

I watched my parents die of cancer and they desperately wanted to treasure every moment in their last months. My best friend has a severe physical disability and sees people sitting on their phones when they could be being more active and actually living. She has just come back off a holiday with her teen daughters and said they took hundreds of photos that looked like they were swimming in the pool, running on the beach, dancing or eating a great meal at sunset. She said in actual fact they spent hours every day just creating posts for social media when she was desperate to jump in the pool or dance with them. She said online it looked like the perfect holiday but they hardly spoke to each other.

I know some people are happiest just chilling on their phones or taking photographs to look back on for happy memories, the majority seem to just be taking them to farm for likes though.

I live in a very popular tourist area with so much beautiful scenery, it seems like it’s just a backdrop with no one seeing it, I was walking with DP and suddenly he started laughing and pointed out that almost everyone was either posing for photos, uploading them or just staring at their phones. It was frustrating because no one was looking where they were going and one woman even told a couple off for walking in front of her and ruining her photo.

I see people go out for meals or groups sitting in the pub, every single person on their phones, it makes me wonder why they don’t just meet, pose for photos and go home!
I walked out on a friend once when we were having a meal and she spent the whole time on her phone, I felt I’d have had more attention from her if we’d been talking on WhatsApp.

I don’t use social media and haven’t for years, I take very few photographs and the ones I take are for me to look back on. My partner used to take a lot and post on instagram but he realised when talking about past trips or days out that we’d both had completely different experiences. He was so busy trying to curate perfect moments to post online that he wasn’t actually properly experiencing things and it was just an illusion. He said he realised he was trying to live life to meet what he thought were other people’s expectations rather than just letting go and enjoying himself.
We have a great photo of him sitting in a field when we’d had a picnic, what it doesn’t show is that it took 20 attempts to get that “natural” photo and whilst he was busy creating it, I was taking in my surroundings and enjoying the sun on my face and relaxing.

I know it’s wrong to ever feel you know better or that we are seeing things clearer than other people, everybody is different and takes pleasure from different things.
There is no right or wrong way for anyone to live but people do get brainwashed by social media and don’t realise it until it’s too late.
I know a lot of people who ditched it and felt the same way, I think the saddest part is that it’s mostly young people who will look back and regret that they lived life as if they were on a stage rather then enjoying just being free.
it’s also so unhealthy that people are literally putting their lives up to be judged and if they don’t get the “likes” they are desperate for that it affects their mental health.

I have never had instagram but I used to use Facebook, I stopped using it because I felt like my life was boring and inadequate compared to other peoples. I fell for the heavily filtered photos and the fact that people were only posting the highlights of their lives and it made me feel depressed, I realised that when something good was happening in my life that it was an added bonus I had something to post online to keep up with other people. The turning point was when I started to feel bitter towards my friends because their lives seemed so much more glamorous and exciting.

Its true comparison really is the thief of joy.

I don’t think things are going to change and it’s also stripping individuality from people as they all rush to follow the crowd. It’d be nice if the “influencers” and the people that are in a position to show the truth behind it all could be more real and honest.

Kevin Bridges the comedian talks about this in his stand up and it’s so accurate and funny. He talked about how he looked at his wife’s instagram page and didn’t recognise himself because the photos were so filtered.

It would be nice in future if a sunset or walk on a beach or a child meeting their new puppy for the first time were just beautiful moments rather then opportunities for the gram, life isn’t always supposed to be like an advert.

So there's someone eating noisily in the cinema and ruining everyone's enjoyment of the film, and your irritation somehow points to something you're lacking/in denial about? Do give over. People are allowed normal human reactions without it meaning anything deeper. Even Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, for god's sake.

We tried a couple of times to take a pic of me and DH together pre camera phones, they weren't successful! (Mainly because of the height difference! )

I can't recall seeing someone in front of a tripod on every bridge every time I walked over one in London either.

Taking photos is fine, but the obvious instagram ones though do make me chuckle.
I saw a woman in a city near me, sit down on a bench, rest her arms on the back and stare into the distance in one of those ‘candid’ poses and then made the man with her take loads of photos of her like it. She then just got up and walked away. The bench had no baring on her day, but her insta obviously says different!

I am not sure who the pics are for? Is it just to have the perfect pic of "the picnic in june 2024""me about to go in to the theatre, looking pensive, in November 2023. Like, when do people go back to look at these pics of themselves?

I'm saturated with other people's lives and photos. I have quit Instagram, unfollowed all friends on FB, but I like FB for all the different useful groups. I no longer read blogs or watch vlogs . I am totally uninterested in seeing photos, or hearing of other peoples lives.
Social media has been so big for so long that I feel the next generation, who are 10-ish now, will follow a different trend once they are in their 20's.. Surely, it's time for a change.

All of the above, I suspect.

Back before digital, I never saw a single person turn the camera towards their own face.

Totally understand this ... I actually had befriended a school mum a while ago & we met a good few times with our daughters, literally every time we were in eachothers company she'd be taking their photos to put up on to her social media stories - one time I remember she was even Sat beside me at a kids birthday party taking the childs photos & then tagging me in her stories whilst not even making much conversation with me while we were sat right next to eachother ... as time went by I started to realise she wasn't really someone I had much in common with & her online persona or who she appeared to be was nothing at all like who she was in person. It actually started to feel like she was only interested in meeting with me & my daughter just so she could post about 'such a great time' ... Don't think I've ever seen her smiling in real life the way she had done on her media posts... I really wonder why people feel the need to post post post.... Just enjoy the moment as it is !!!!

Agree. For example when did taking photos of your very ordinary pub lunch become a thing? Sat in a hospital waiting room last week and people were posing for selfies. Obviously phones with cameras have led to this weird state.
I remember sending your film off in the post or taking it to the chemist to be developed in a week or so. Yes it is nice to be able to take better photo so much more easily these days but things are taken to extremes by many people.
I used to get cross with my horrid ex husband (horrid for other much bigger reasons) because we would be in a beautiful peaceful place but instead of enjoying the experience he was on his phone posting or looking at bollocks.

It’s a sign of not being present and just providing ‘evidence’ which gives me the ick too personally

It's interesting because I don't disagree, but when you think about, you're getting annoyed because you want to see the area/landmark in a certain way (without people taking photos), and you aren't. But that's the way it really is. Your idealized idea of the landmark is just as fake as theirs.

Also see people who complain there's too many tourists at a place, not realizing they themselves are a tourist.

They're not choosing to be angry at it, this is spiritual bypass mumbo jumbo nonsense.

They're having a valid reaction to something and are well within their rights to embrace their own anger in that moment instead of trying to bury it beneath a load of dodgy rationale about choosing emotions.

Should I live and let live?

I dunno why this made me laugh. Like what's the alternative? Murder? 😅

But them being narcissistic twats and there at the location is their prerogative. OP is choosing to be angry at it, ergo it's her problem not theirs. It's not her house, who cares if they're not "respecting" it as long as they're not shitting on the floor or graffitiing or something?

You can actually just not let stupid shit like this bother you. Life is much nicer if you just let the rabble be the rabble and focus on yourself.

Agree OP. The whole way it has gone makes me feel depressed and shows people in a very vain, shallow, self obsessed way.

It's like when I see young women and they are so fake looking now with their tans and their big lips and fake eyelashes and hair extensions and nails done. Most of them are far more attractive with their natural selves (I know this is not all young women!) If you watch any film from the seventies or eighties you will see that woman looked so 'real' and 'unperfect'. Of course they wore makeup and some were very pretty but they were natural pretty. Older women seemed to be around more and were given better parts than they get now.

Also if you look back to TOTP from the seventies, eighties you see bands who are not necessarily attractive to look at but actually could sing and wrote their own music. Being a musician was about the music and not looking perfect and miming along to a song someone else has written.

I feel like life has been sanitised to make it look instant and perfect but removing the real stuff. So yes some of our photos used to be crap and it could be annoying but they captured the actual moment when your hair was sticking up in the wind or whatever. Yes we took photos but generally of other people or nice sights and it would be one or two. We didn't take them of ourselves and spend ages posing for them.

Leaving school (and going to uni) in the 80's my generation was very much the era of career woman and woman were striving to become lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers and pilots and those less ambitious or less academic still wanted a career as a nurse or a hairdresser or a florist. Now obviously lots of women still have good jobs nowadays but lots seem to be aiming to be 'an influencer' or making money posing online modelling.

The whole things makes me feel sad and I am glad I grew up when I did.

There are lots of good things about the internet and our phone cameras etc but it has just gone too far.

Even our real food has become the ultra processed 'fake' food.

Rant over.....

It's not an overcrowding problem it's a people behaving like narcissistic twats and not appreciating or respecting the place problem. You can't bypass this anger just by saying, oh I'll be in the moment and all these twats will go away.

OP is also at the tourist location, ergo is part of the tourist overcrowding problem.

Whether she's taking pictures of it or not isn't really relevant.

It's not their problem

Put sewage in the sea it's ruined, you won't enjoy it

Put a load of narcissistic twats at a tourist location, same thing

You want to talk to my DD (13) this gives her the RAGE. She calls it 'main character syndrome'.

I agree that it is more than just self obsession. It's like everything is only interesting because of how it looks these days. Like those 'experiences' you go to where it turns out just to be selfie taking and everyone seems ok with that. Just empty.

By the same token if you don't have an image of yourself looking good in front of something you may as well not have seen it, even if it's the most interesting place on earth.

I feel such an old woman sometimes (I'm mid 40s) that I feel like when I'm in London I'm constantly in fear of photobombing someone's pic, or worse inadvertently being in their video*. The other day I realised I had probably ruined someone's tiktok video just leaving the self check out area of tesco where they were filming a dance routine!

*I don't want to be the star of "look at the oblivious middle age woman interrupting our video!"

I don't know how other people were taking 50-100 pics a day back in the day, it would have cost a bomb to have them all developed! 🤣