To feel like things are celebrated for the sake of social media posts?

[Dontknowwhattodo223]

I realise I could just not use social media. It seems now like things like Halloween are just used for social media posts. "Boo" boxes?? Someone I've got on Facebook has just uploaded 100 photos of their child's "first halloween" - is celebrating a baby's first Halloween a thing?

It's just performance parenting for likes.
It's never about a special moment with the child but about capturing the "moment " for social media.

Consumerism at it's best without consideration for the environment.
Call be miserable, but it's kind of scary- pun intended.

I had the most wonderful time at university. And yet, I have almost no pictures of that time. I wish we had had social media and camera phones then.

Yes, people get ridiculous amd OTT but we have always wanted to document. It just wasn't as easy before.

I love a slide show 😄 where there are dozens of photos pretty much all the same. I'd also love to sit through a holiday video taken on an old cine camera.

I always feel like this when the Christmas posts come up. Properly lavishly decorated houses, huge trees with mountains of presents for the kids, matching jammies and Christmas even boxes/presents.
Even though I know it's all done for the benefit of the 'gram followers, still makes me feel like the worst mum in the world every year with our B&Q tree, couple of presents each for the kids and handmade paper chains.

"What others do" affects everyone though.
Not walking into the path of people taking photos is one thing. Having your view blocked by mobile phones at concerts, phones on in cinemas and this year my view of the stunning horizon spoilt by numerous mums and daughters posing in the sea.

The Op said the photos were part of the session were the babies came in costume. That's pretty hard to pretend it's not happening isn't it.

Also agree that Halloween appears to be an all week event now rather than just trick or treating on the 31st. At least this one is about decorating rather than buying stuff so doesn't involve any cost on my part.

You've reminded me of my MILs trips to France in the late 80s. A month of photos to look through in the order in which they were taken. No picking out something that looked slightly less tedious to speed things along. " Here's John by the statue of Napoleon and here's me by the statue ". " Here's John by the inscription on the plinth underneath the statue of Napoleon and Here's me......." God it was dire.

I hate Halloween. There is a house near me where they’ve festooned the front garden in fake spider web. That stuff is lethal to wildlife, things get trapped in it.

Text messaging, full stop, was in its infancy in 1994. Not many phones supported it and, in the UK, it was only available on certain networks to other phones within the same network.

Someone pleaded on a local FB group for people to not use that web stuff as it was lethal for birds. The comments were disgusting- mostly along the lines from of “my kids deserve to have fun/it’s only a bird/kids having fun is more important than wildlife/god people are so miserable” etc.
Humans are selfish and vile.

Yanbu, there's now period boxes, back to school mini parties, pamper this and that. You can say don't blame social media, but this is where it's promoted.
You see this, it makes you feel like you should be doing more, you go to the stores and it's all over, then you buy little bits and before you know it you are sucked in.

All these things wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for social media. I am so glad I grew up before all this nonsense started.

This! Let people enjoy things, it’s not for me personally, posting everything something on social media, but live and let live!

I agree OP. It’s the OTT in the same way baby showers and baby reveals are much more common these days. It’s the trend from the US. It puts pressure on parents I feel. I got a black bin bag, a cardboard witches hat and a turnip as a lantern. I’d never seen a pumpkin until I was an adult! 😂

I think the internet has made it more competitive.

Honestly, if o wanted the contents of a ‘boo box’ I would buy it myself.

and my kids are an adult and almost adult so well past first Halloween etc.

But so what. Plenty of people have celebrated all their babies firsts. I know plenty of people who love Halloween and nothing goes on social media. So it makes sense they women be excited for their babies first.

But, just let people be happy. I decided last year I was going to do things that bring me joy. Decorating the living room with autumn decor brings me joy. I don’t post it and I know plenty of MN look down on people have seasonal decoration, but so what. It brings me joy. It will bring me joy when I take it down for Christmas.

If it brings people joy to do something then Post it on social media, so what.

Exactly. It's not hurting anyone.

No, I celebrate all the things, take loads of pictures of my babies and pretty much never put it on SM.
Life if about being happy and having fun imo.
I could never imagine getting miserable and judgey because someone wants to enjoy their babies first Halloween. This weird competitive under enjoyment of life on mumsnet is so gross.

And yet I have photos of my first Halloween almost 40 years ago, I was the only child but my mum dressed me up and my granny threw a Halloween party for me in her living room with a little bowl of treats.
No SM.

I love taking photos and looking back at them brings me joy. I post nice ones on Instagram and Facebook, my great aunt comments on them (she’s 89 so I think that’s quite nice as she lives 400miles away) and then I think very little of it. It’s a bit of fun.

I do a lot of travelling though and one thing I cannot bear is the ‘insta pose’. Head tilted to the side, not really smiling, pointed toe. It’s so ridiculous. I see people posing like this everywhere I go (on holidays or all around London). It’s not just one picture, either. The whole process takes hours. If I have a picture taken of myself it’s either a cheesy selfie or just a nice, face on, picture of myself. Like, life is too short to do all this posing nonsense! The photos are going to look so dated in a few years (like duck face, peace signs etc).

There is nothing wrong with people making the most out of ‘holidays’.
The world is miserable so I’ll make things fun for my daughter.

Yes I agree with this, I feel like people do over share at times & it's purely for validation from others - which really should be the person who shares all of these hundreds of pics to be validating themselves. It's nice to share moments of course but alot of it is in overdrive. Our brains aren't capable of processing a million things at full speed at a time. Alot of this has contributed to people feeling like they have the need to compare themselves to others. Iv decided to have a break away for my own reasons for a while from social media, and have definitely have felt alot calmer in my own life.

Delete the social media and do activities where you can actively avoid these people. That's what we do. Not everyone is like this.

I'd far rather have a walk in the woods and enjoy the autumn colours, do some craft and have nice food at home, watch a spooky film.

Of course Halloween existed, as did Halloween parties. But dressing up houses, Christmas Eve boxes, elf on the shelf… and all the other rubbish… it’s all fuelled by social media.

Halloween outfits when I was a kid was a bin bag, some dodgy fake blood and a witches hat that we dug out every year.

There’s some right misery guts on this thread 😂

Boo boxes cringe every bone in my body

It's purely for social media and comes from tiktok