Buy Or Don’t Buy

What a painful situation. You log into facebook one bright morning to find one of your friends has uploaded and tagged some photos of you. If you’re like me (painfully self aware) you instantly get pangs of paranoia. My immediate reaction goes something like this:

“OH MY GOD THAT IS A HORRIBLE PICTURE OF ME. Why the fuck did you upload that picture of me and put it on Facebook and then tag me in the photo. Are you trying to make fun of me, because I really look like shit. I know I don’t look that bad IRL, do I? What the fuck. Do I untag it? It’s really that bad. Man, everyone is going to think I’m a total retard now.”

This brings us to an interesting modern dilemma. DO you untag yourself in the photo? If you do, does it also carry unflattering connotations? Would you rather look like a mutated face monster - or a vain, mutated face monster only slightly less searchable?

I’m a strong believer in cultivating your own personal brand. First of all, remember all those people who made fun of you in high school who are now trolling Facebook because they’re bored with their humdrum life, and want to recapture a semblance of their former prime? Yeah, you still want to look better than they do. Second of all, people use Facebook for all kinds of things now: vetting prospective employees, vetting prospective friends, vetting prospective lovers(!), stalking former friends and frienemies! I personally believe that the less ammunition you can give these people, the better.

I’m willing to go one step further and would like to petition Facebook for the option of deleting any photograph that I appear in. I want to have final signoff on where my image and/or likeness appears. My face needs its own Non Disclosure Agreement.