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.

You may dislike it all you want. You have a right to your feelings. Why does it bother you so much? That is something for you to ponder.
People are mainly interested in portraying themselves in a positive light. It is human nature. What does this tell you about yourself?
Once you have figured that out you can let the feeling go and then allow people to do their thing.

Try laughing instead.

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.

Repulses is a very strong statement. If you're repulsed by people posing for photos then you're way beyond a bitter and angry person.

Get a grip.

I agree OP. It’s really annoying. I saw someone posing for a candid shot outside a hairdresser yesterday.

I agree OP, but don't get stressed about it and let it ruin your day. IME many people are utter self obsessed shits. You just need to accept this and move on.

Nothing wrong with that. The red telephone boxes are iconic feature of Britain. Some date back to the 30's, like some of the street lights. People do the same on Gibraltar. They also queue to take pictures by the horse mounted guards, outside football stadium signs etc. I've got photos of me, in the 70's at such landmarks. We've always done that. For some, London/UK is a once in a lifetime trip.

I'm kind of on the fence on this one. The reason we didn't take lots of photos when I was a kid was because it cost a lot of money - the camera itself, buying a film cartridge, the flash cubes, paying to get the photos developed etc. There are several years where we have no family photos at all - I'm assuming we didn't have a camera then. There are hardly any photos of us at Christmas. We were taken to see Santa every year but there are no photos of any of us with Santa. Other photos were ruined by the red eye thing. And there are some double exposures where the film strip must have got stuck. The photos we do have are very precious because there aren't too many of them. But I would love to have more and I regret all the photos we don't have.

I'm glad people don't have financial constraints where photos are concerned and can (and do) take multiple photos of everything. I take a lot of photos myself although I cba to put them on social media. But I love making photo books and looking back at the memories.

The whole selfies thing amuses me more than annoys me. Yes, it's very vain and narcissistic but it's just young people following a trend. Same as me desperately wanting legwarmers at the height of Fame. I wonder what the nuns would have made of it all 😀. Anyway, I hope it helped to vent a bit.

Yes I completely agree OP. We had a home on a Greek island where there is a famous shipwreck on the beach. We used to go to this little platform where you can look down on it, say wow a couple of times and take 2 or three photos; that was it. The last time we went I couldn't believe it. A huge queue of people with people taking up the whole platform for 5-10 mins having a model style photoshoot while people waited in 35 degree heat.

It was the most vapid, self obsessed display I have ever seen; to have that little self awareness or embarrassment just boggled my mind.

I went out last night and passed two very beautiful women in tiny dresses sat in a window seat designed for good pics. Their poses were extraordinary and then when I had to go past again a few mins later they were sat morosely looking miserable. I couldn’t help but compare my nights out when young and think how much it liberate us that there were rarely any photos and quite often they were spontaneous so you just wore whatever and no one cared. This idea of curated experiences and images has a lot to answer for.

I’m not on instagram but I love seeing the photos of holidays / days out that my friends and family post on FB. Best part of FB for me.

Funnily enough, a couple of cousins of mine - who I know take the most amazing holidays - hardly ever post on social media.

The one thing I find strange is how airbrushed some of the selfies are, I mean they hardly resemble the person! and everyone saying ‘oh, you look amazing’’ - of course she does, she’s spent half an hour faking the photo.

I just find it all a bit pointless and weird.

People with 500 pictures of their day trip that they'll probably never look at again.

And it isn't all young people experiencing social media pressure, before I gave up SM year ago, a work colleague in her 50s used to post 20 selfies in a row, that all looked almost identical and she had something like 25 FB friends at the time.

It's worse now since the rise of influencers, Mummy influencers, family vloggers etc. Lots of people hoping they'll have a post go viral and they'll get millions of followers and get rich. Often by exploiting their families.

I think you're on to something there. Nobody could get a normal picture.

Holiday snaps that my grandparents took always had other people milling around and the landmark wasn't the future of the photo. Now, most people understand a lot more about basic photo composition and so want the photos that they have imagined they will take.

I'm in two minds about this, I enjoy photography and do have Instagram and post photos but thilese are taken on quiet walks alone and this is something that I do for my mental health.

On the flip side, I take LOADS of photos on family days out that don't go on Instagram. I make these into short videos for my ND son who will struggle on days out and despite having a great time 90% of the time will only remember the 10% when he had a meltdown or had to be taken outside. He likes to watch them later and we can talk about what a nice day it was when the pressure is off later.

People take photos for different reasons, why and how other people are taking photos is nothing to do with anyone else. People enjoy themselves in weird ways.

Yes, like the shallowness of the world has been turned up a notch...! Like, who cares whether a library is functioning as an actual library? What matters is it LOOKS like it does. 😒

Perhaps in years to come, future generations will be pleased to have so many photos of their family members? Who knows.

They are usually filtered to fuck though so people won’t recognise them! 😆

Honestly it's so good to hear someone else thinking the same thing! Not just that it's irritating (I find it so) but that is a significant change.

It angers you because it is the reflection of a more self absorbed, individualistic society.

It's not the act of taking the pictures in these places that angers you its the reasons behind it. They are only doing it to get likes on the internet and it's depressing.

I understand your feelings about it, i might take a couple of shots and thats it. When i come across these people I politely wait while they take a couple of pictures then get in their way and enjoy the view/ building / whatever and take a couple of shots 🤣.

If they complain I say I did wait but I am not standing around all day til you finish.

I think OP it is creating a deeper shift too. Like the aesthetic value of everything has risen a few notches above other values for things

I recognise this, some things are more about the aesthetic than the actual experience, event etc. There’s a farm near my in-laws that always did fruit picking and pumpkin picking etc. The pumpkin picking is now an actual festival thing with the key highlight being “numerous photo opportunities/stages”. Why would you pay ££££ to take a photo in a van filled with pumpkins or pout next to a scarecrow??

Having gone through my dads photos - no future generations won't want even more photos to chuck out

It angers you because it is the reflection of a more self absorbed, individualistic society. It's not the act of taking the pictures in these places that angers you its the reasons behind it. They are only doing it to get likes on the internet and it's depressing.

I think this is it. And it is incredibly depressing. Plus the aesthetic thing mentioned above. It is interesting - there probably is an ancient survival instinct behind feeling unreasonably annoyed about it.

It angers you because it is the reflection of a more self absorbed, individualistic society.

It’s depressing that so many think it’s appropriate to film the aftermath of a violent incident & upload it for likes. Or take selfies with bodies 🤮

It irritates me a bit because they get in everyone's way. It's one thing snapping a picture but quite another when it's a full on stage production and being taken over and over again.

It's a fleeting annoyance though and I don't dwell on it. I actually feel slightly sorry for them tbh.

My daughter takes lots of photos and wants to do a photography degree at university. She's very good (her mama is biased!).

But even she loathes the pouty instagram unattainable lifestyle shtick.

She has a digital camera but recently tried an Instax-style one and said the difference is being conscious that you only have a limited amount of shots to use so you are more choosy in what to take your pictures of.

I'm on IG, threads and X, WhatsApp and Pinterest. IG is private for close family & friends only, same with Threads. It's my online family album. X is my anonymised account where I express more "controversial" views. WhatsApp is for communication with my daughter and brother and Pinterest is for my midlife crisis stuff like pictures of tattoos and EatPrayLove travel pictures. I also don't buy into the whole "influencer" thing at all.

I read how people assume all those pictures and posts will last forever but platforms and technologies change so some online stuff will just not be around forever.

I agree with you op.

I do find it a big cringey to see people posing for 'candids' and a bit disturbing somehow when you see a girl change from a real person into this pouty-duckface-doll for a selfie, but I can't say I see it everywhere or that it's distracting. I notice it occasionally, but it doesn't happen to the extent that it's bothersome.

What I don’t get is that all these people are spending hours posing for a photo to look like they are having a wonderful time and living their best life, when they are not. Do they not realise that all of these pictures are the same? That all the people looking happy and carefree have also spent ages getting the angle just right, been annoyed at people getting in the way etc. That so many of them are living this fake life?

This is how I think.

Alright, they might not have to physically throw them as they'll be on a device or in a cloud but I think even the most nostalgic self-absorbed person is very unlikely to want to go through thousands of pictures their parents took of them during their childhood.

It gets boring pretty quickly when there's so many.