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

[LilacCatt]

I am feeling so nostalgic right now for life pre-social media and pre-smart phones.

I am mid 30s. When I was 17 I had MySpace. When I was 19 I had Facebook. I deleted social media when I was 21 and have been without ever since. I use WhatsApp and occasionally have a peruse of Mumsnet.

Anyway.

Lately (for the past few years), I feel like whenever I visit a remotely interesting place (days out are my favourite thing to do) I am just so distracted from my own enjoyment by people around me posing for photos. Sometimes I see people doing really cringey things such as taking a few steps forward whilst getting their photo taken as if "candid", then quickly checking the result, and then going back to their original spot to take the same few steps forward whilst posing again.

Oh my god. This is all with people around them who are trying to enjoy the moment of the place of interest.

I feel it really repulses me, and actually angers me.

But I can't articulate WHY that is.

I don't want to be a bitter or angry person.

So I just want to explore this emotion a bit more, and open up the floor for a debate here.

Am I being unreasonable to have the inner emotional reaction when I see this sort of thing going on around me?

Should I live and let live?

Is it a symbol of everything wrong in society???

Questioning myself and my thoughts.

Thanks.

I belong to a gym that’s part of hotel so guests can use the gym and pool.
I go late at night and the pool is often quiet with a few of the same regular serious swimmers.
There are signs everywhere saying phones aren’t allowed in the pool or changing rooms.

A few weeks ago there was a couple who were hotel guests that brought their phones into the pool area. They were getting into the pool one at a time and posing and taking photos. At one point the girl went and changed bikinis and then more pictures were taken.
They were standing in the middle getting in everyone’s way who were actually trying to swim, then they both got in and started taking selfies together.

I tried to ignore it but then the man sat at the edge of the pool filming his girlfriend walking towards the camera in the water next to where I was swimming up and down. I asked him to stop but he just ignored me.

I went to reception and requested they ask the couple to stop and I wanted the photos deleting if I was in them. It turns out they were going to upload the videos on tik tok where I’m swimming with an unflattering swim cap and goggles.

I have very low self esteem and I’m not really sure how it works but if they tagged the gym then I didn’t want people seeing me like that and I didn’t particularly want to see videos of myself like that!

The videos were deleted but in the changing room the girl was taking pictures of herself in the mirror where people were getting changed, there are no cubicles just benches and lockers so women were fully undressed.

I don’t know how people can be so selfish as to disrupt other people and make them feel so uncomfortable whilst deliberately ignoring rules the hotel have made to protect guests privacy. It blows my mind how anyone can see it as acceptable to bring a camera into a changing area and think that no one will object!

Can’t articulate why but YANBU!!

What truly sickens me is the people who take selfies at places like Dachau and Auschwitz or ground zero.

The lack of awareness and respect in order to be able to do that is nothing short of disgusting and I don’t think I could visit in case I witnessed it.

If I someone I knew messed around and posed for photos where hundreds of thousands of innocent people were transported to be gassed to death then I’d never speak to them again.

I agree - I’ve been to all 3 of those places and have seen the same - and it’s bizarre to me that people photo and smile etc sometimes I worry about humans!

There’s a group now called Smartphone Free Childhood trying to do this.

Do people actually call it 'the gram'? It's enough of a cesspit as it is.

I agree. I'm in London this weekend. I've paid a fortune for the tourist attractions that you can't get near for people posing. It's not just young men and women either. We were in tussauds earlier and a man in his 40's was directing his very small child like he was Spielberg, holding everyone else back, last night, in the west end a mother was snapping away at her young daughter, who was striking so many poses I wanted to shout vogue vogue vogue a la Madonna, we were in the queue for the loo.

Yeah and it when it first started people used to giggle about it being The Gram ( like coke) - are you on the gram

God I was an idiot.

Yeah, the insta arseholes are everywhere. Just step over or around them!
I would always pause for someone taking a photo in public, not walk in front of the photographer taking the pic of friends in front of the Eiffel Tower etc or offer to take a photo but the insta arseholes? With their endless takes and re-takes, and angles and selfies, and stupid poses and re-poses - fuck them.
You’d be there all day waiting for them to stop pouting and hair flicking and flexing their whatever’s

Or running and jumping in front of a phone sat on the ground…
Just look around and actually enjoy where you are …
I have skin in the game, my US SIL is like this - wants to do YOUR -OP in a week and not actually see anything, just get the insta pic infront of everything without actually going in anywhere

I get irritated when there is a queue for something like a viewpoint or a piece of art. If everyone took a couple of snaps and moved on, there wouldn't be such long queues. Instead you have to wait for people to take about 50 photos from numerous angles and then look through them all to make sure they are OK before they move on.

I was upset in Auschwitz. We were in a gas chamber and I was in quiet contemplation thinking about the poor souls who lost their lives in there. Someone almost pushed me over as he wanted to stand under the hopper in the roof where the pellets came in and take pics of himself posing and grinning. I found that disrespectful.

It's become a really noticeable trend.

Last time I was in Prague there were a load of insta dicks running and jumping next to the Fred and Ginger building getting action shots. Made a proper nuisance of themselves.

In tenerife we couldn't get to a popular viewpoint because a big group of bikini clad young women were using it for their own wee fashion shoot.

I think it's bad for everyone on so many levels. It encourages vanity for one. You absolutely cannot be present mentally if you are obsessing over photos and it's a pain for the people around them.

The world would be a much better place if Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok ceased to exist

@YorkshirePuddingsGreatestFan

That's dreadful. Why you even need a camera in such a place is beyond me.

Haven’t RTFT so apologies if this has already been said.

However - I think social media has destroyed the minds of a lot of millennials / gen z. They need the validation and the likes. Their brains have literally evolved with it, with little regulation. I truly feel sorry for them.

I do think there is a shift, look at movements like ‘smartphone free childhood’, ‘dumb’ phones, etc. In the US they are discussing adding a health warning to social media sites. I think (and hope, as mother to two young children) we’ll see a change in the next decade.

But, again, so what!? If that's what they want to do, let them. I genuinely can't understand why other people are so bothered by it.

There’s a group now called Smartphone Free Childhood trying to do this.

Interesting.

I feel the same OP. It seems like nothing is enjoyed in the moment any more. I hate going to places and seeing people posing and taking selfies. It's weird.

We were at the Christ the Redeemer statue a few years back, soooo many people posing with arms outstretched like the statue……

The mona lisa at the louvre was madness for this! Massive crowd, no-one ‘moving things along’ and selfish selfie-takers hogging the front. It was a spectacle, however, and the woman’s serene, slightly appraising expression in the painting added to it.