
The Tyranny of Other People’s Vacation Photos (2016) - prostoalex
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/fashion/vacation-photos-facebook-instagram.html?smid=fb-style&smty=cur&mtrref=m.facebook.com
======
jasode
The NYT article about over-sharing vacation photos can be generalized to the
widespread human nature of narcissism: people share too many personal
highlights that most others don't care about.

E.g. new mother shares endless stream of baby photos while most of her
20-something ex-college friends/coworkers are oversaturated with it. (E.g. the
sentiment that if you've seen one blob of an undifferentiated poop machine in
diapers, you've seen them all.) Yes, the infant is _The Most Interesting
Person In The World_ to that mother so it seems logical to her that others
would find her posted photos to be interesting too.

On a large scale, we simply have no self-awareness about our narcissism and
its banality to others.

Long before the existence of the internet and Facebook in the days of film
photography, hosts would torture their dinner guests by having them gather in
the living room and flip through slides[1] of the hosts' vacation. The guests
silently suffer through the boring presentation but of course, etiquette means
nobody would dare say, "Joe, this is boring and we're going home now." Polite
society on a large-scale, self-censors the expression of boredom which
perversely continues the large-scale unawareness that sharing too many
personal highlights is subjecting friends to cruel & unusual punishment.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=kodak+slide+carousel+slide+p...](https://www.google.com/search?q=kodak+slide+carousel+slide+projector&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

~~~
rayiner
As someone in the cohort that was in college when Facebook was first invented,
who are now all having kids, I don't really see that phenomenon at play.
Nobody responds when I post, e.g. a rebuttal to the recent Atlantic article
that discusses US versus Canadian public spending. Putting up a picture of my
kid, in contrast, will result in dozens of likes. (I of course feel
reciprocally.)

I'd turn this around and say, if you're annoyed by pictures of other peoples'
kids or their vacations or what they ate, maybe you're the narcissistic one.
In a modern world where people often move far away from friends and family to
pursue careers, Facebook fills in for a lot of the shared experience that
people would otherwise have. I want to see pictures of my friends baby,
because I can't visit her often on the opposite coast. I want to see the
latest food my father in law put in the smoker, because I can't drop in to
steal a sample. I'm interested in the lives of my friends and family and
Facebook let's me at least keep a bit in touch with what's happening.

~~~
jasode
_> when Facebook was first invented, who are now all having kids, I don't
really see that phenomenon at play. _

I don't doubt that there are people that genuinely enjoy others' baby photos.
However, I wouldn't be able to tell which comments left on each others' pages
were expressions of authentic sincerity instead of mindless reflexes of
etiquette.

That said, this Reddit thread[1] highlights a collective exasperation that
clearly comes from _somewhere_.

Likewise, there are surely some who enjoy others vacation slideshows (e.g.
Retric in this thread) but again, there's a widespread rejection of them[2]
that comes from _somewhere_. People won't complaint directly to the posters
face -- e.g. they won't write on the posters wall to _" stop flooding the feed
with your stupid vacation photos"_. People are generally too polite to do
that.

 _> , maybe you're the narcissistic one._

It's not about me. It's about observing social dynamics:

1) People _overestimate_ the parts of their personal lives that are
interesting to others

2) People are silent or insincerely praise the over-sharing of others'
personal highlights

Those 2 factors create a weird/interesting feedback cycle that transcends
Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat. It's been happening long before that.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/rtapw/my_facebook_ne...](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/rtapw/my_facebook_news_feed_now_that_all_my_friends_are/)

[2] [http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/06/29/no-one-wants-to-
see...](http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/06/29/no-one-wants-to-see-your-
boring-vacation-photos-study-says.html)

~~~
rayiner
Without knowledge of the minds of others, I can only assume they understand
how Facebook works. For my part, if I consistently like pictures of your kid
it means I want to see them on my feed.

Clearly there are people who don't like pictures of peoples' vacations or kids
enough to bitch on Reddit about it. I'd call those people narcissists.
Facebook is inherently about sharing things about yourself: your kid, your
vacation, your new job, your walk by the river, even your political opinions.
Almost nothing posted on Facebook is not self centered in some way. That's not
inherently narcissistic. What narcissistic is when you post that stuff
yourself, but can't empathize with others enough not to be annoyed when they
do it.

~~~
jasode
_> For my part,_

Yes, I've already acknowledge that people like you exist but it's not relevant
to what I was discussing. But let's continue on that example you gave...

 _> if I consistently like pictures of your kid it means I want to see them on
my feed._

Right... but when a person complains to her friends that "nobody 'likes' her
posts", it then causes some of them to start "liking" the posts just to get
her to shut up. This type of dynamic contributes to the phenomenon I'm talking
about.

 _> Facebook is inherently about sharing things about yourself: [...] Almost
nothing posted on Facebook is not self centered in some way. That's not
inherently narcissistic._

You're reducing the topic to an absolutism which is not what I'm talking about
even though I took great care in the first post to properly qualify the social
phenomenon: _over_ -sharing instead of just sharing and _" too many personal
highlights"_ instead of just "personal highlights". The NYT author did the
same when he wrote, _" _excessive_ posting of these pictures"_.

Yes, Facebook is inherently about sharing... just as an old slide carousel is
about sharing film photos. The respective technologies' purpose is not the
point.

To restate... There is a widespread social phenomenon: many of us share more
than the audience wants to see. It has a perverse feedback mechanism (social
grooming, white lies, polite self-censorship, self-ignorance, etc) that
perpetuates the phenomenon across different media (e.g. film slides to
Facebook). (This disconnect between posters' (non)curation vs audience
receptiveness is also mentioned at the end of the NYT article when the author
wrote, _" I am trying to calibrate my photographic output. As we all
should."_)

I think that's interesting observation to talk about. Maybe your issue is the
word "narcissism"? I used that term because that seems to have the most
currency.[1] If there's a better word, make a suggestion. If bringing up the
topic itself is toxic and shouldn't be discussed, please explain why.

[1] examples:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=digital+narcissism](https://www.google.com/search?q=digital+narcissism)

------
jasonkester
It's a shame in a way that mobile internet has become so ubiquitous, and that
people tend to therefore spend so much of their time on the beach looking at
their phone.

One of the nice things about being away is that you're away. That you're
forced out of your routine, unable to keep up with the same day-to-day stuff
as usual, and cut off from your friends. It forces you to _make new friends_.

Travel for me used to be a good hack to overcome a natural tendency toward
introversion. At some point, after not speaking to a human for a few days, I
would go in to Emergency Survival Social Mode, where I had to strike up a
conversation with the person at the next table right that minute just to
preserve my sanity. And nearly every time I'd find that that person was going
through the same thing and was thus happy to chat about whatever for a while.

That's a lot harder to do now, when everybody sitting alone at a table has
their phone out, facebooking away with their friends at home as per normal.

I don't know what the solution will be. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back
and people will realize that it's nice to disconnect for real from time to
time. Especially when there is real sand between their toes and a real sunset
going on in front of them (and a real girl sitting at the next table).

~~~
rimliu
Are you sure you have a tendency for introversion? I am introvert and I have
no need for "Emergency Survival Social Mode". On the contrary, now and then I
want to get away from and by with just myself for a few days.

~~~
jasonkester
Have you tried the thing I'm talking about? As in, traveling through Southeast
Asia for several months by yourself and hitting spells of over a week at a
time where you honestly haven't spoken to another human being except to order
food?

It takes a pretty dedicated introvert to not need even a little human company
after a while.

~~~
psyc
I'm very introverted, and I haven't had an in-person conversation in almost 2
years. It does eventually become the only priority, like when you're starving,
or badly craving a cigarette.

------
eludwig
Great article. I laughed. I wonder if this is mostly a matter of
indiscriminate visibility and a lack of friction?

In the old days, there was that moment when visiting someone's house (friend,
relative maybe) and the topic of family vacations came up. Then someone
suggests the slide projector. You could almost feel the silent "uggh" from the
people who were not on the vacation. The worst part would be the unknown
length of the slide show. (ten minutes? two hours?) But setting up the slide
projector was a fair effort, so it could easily be put off "until next time
you come over" (phew! Dodged a bullet!)

Now you just pop them up on FB and they are there for all to see. Compound
that with the fact that FB's sharing controls are so complicated that actually
just sharing with a particular subset (immediate family, grandparents, etc) is
nigh impossible for ordinary mortals and there you are! Bazillions of terrible
family photos a click away, or worse: a scroll away, no click needed.

Physical photos did have some advantages: at least they could be avoided! ;D

~~~
watwut
I don't understand how facebook picture posting is worst then physical if this
is your attitude towards them.

If they would set up projector, you would have to either watch it or say
openly you dont want to watch them. Meanwhile, on facebook you just scroll
past all that. Eventually you can click on something other people post and
facebook will show you more of that in the future. Moreover people typically
post them in albums. If you dont click album. You dont spend time watching
pictures.

Unless of course, mere remainder of existence of such thing annoys you.

------
noisy_boy
Deleting my Facebook account has been one of the best decisions I've ever
taken. It has helped avoid a lot many negative emotions.

~~~
rimliu
It still looks to me like amputating hand because you got a splinter in the
finger.

~~~
_tulpa
How about a happy compromise: Ditch everything except mbasic.facebook.com (I
have a hosts entry that does that) and messenger lite.

Both are perfectly usable and I can still have a social life, but it's not as
effortless as just scrolling down so you tend to do it less and stop when you
stop caring (well I do anyway). Definitely dialed back the background anxiety
levels when I did that.

~~~
rimliu
I have deleted facebook app from my phone long ago because of the very shady
things it was allegedly trying to do (and to save my battery). Only use FB
mobile site on the phone. I'll give mbasic a try, thanks for mentioning it :)

------
roadbeats
A month ago I went to a story telling event. There was one woman who came in
the middle of the event, and went on the stage to tell her story as soon as
she joined the group, without waiting or listening anyone else. She told a
story about how she went to a beach, how she enjoyed, etc. Her personal
experience of enjoying life. She talked about it like 10 minutes, then left
the place without listening anyone else. She just wanted to tell 50 people how
she enjoys the beach near her home, and also, asked the organizer of the event
to record her 10 minutes speech with her phone, so she could put that video on
Facebook. Narcissism in these days is in a level that people acts worse than
celebrities, thanks to social media.

~~~
EADGBE
Everyone at a storytelling event is a narcissist, to some extent.

This is okay.

I liked her method until I realized she recorded it to put on Facebook. Almost
thought it was some sort of way to cope without being on Facebook.

------
darrmit
I take tons of pictures of my son. I don't feel the need to share them on
Facebook, nor does my wife. If we want a group of people to see pictures, we
send them the pictures directly.

People ARE way too addicted to that red notification symbol.

------
Artlav
Hm, am i broken? I see travel photos as something private, only shown if and
when the relative bicker me for them.

I take a lot of photos usually, and they act as something like an extension of
my memory, a journal. To show them to someone else is an intimate thing.

------
amelius
I'd like to see an experiment where people are forced to post their bank
balance along with their vacation photos.

~~~
mercurysmessage
I don't travel a ton, but I do some for personal vacations. Honestly myself,
and I'm sure many others don't care about the money spent. I'd rather have a
nice trip, I'm not that greedy.

~~~
Sleeep
I think the implication is they are spending money they don't have and going
into debt in order to craft an image on social media.

------
cortesoft
I don't get why seeing people having fun makes you sad; when I see pictures of
my friends and family having fun doing stuff, it makes me feel really happy
knowing that people I care about are enjoying themselves. Sure, I sometimes
laugh at the silliness of it all, but it still makes me happy.

If someone else's joy makes you feel bad, you need to take a look at yourself.

~~~
rocqua
Taking a look at yourself is the issue. Self-introspection ought to include
some variant of the question "Am I having enough fun". In answering this
question, people take an empirical approach, looking at other results.

If what you see of other is biased, that biases your answer to that question,
and thus biases your introspection towards "I should be doing better".

------
elorant
When this thing runs its circle a lot of people are going to feel miserable
and depressed.

------
overcast
We've discussed a similar topic quite a few times on HN. All of these "social"
sites, are giving only the best slices of everyones life, constantly. To the
point that is makes you feel as an individual, that your life is almost
meaningless, and deprived. Everyone else looks like they are having the most
amazing time, constantly. While you're sitting there at work, refreshing the
feed on your phone. I removed myself from Facebooks/Reddits/Twitters years
ago. They are plague to this generation.

------
losteverything
Not tyranny, really.

Travel is one of a handful of subjects/topics you can start with the range
from total stranger to yourself.

People love to talk travel and it often allows them to be brought out. In this
day and age of sides, travel has none

The others are weather and genealogy

------
dustin999
The fact that so many people are posting updates an hour after starting their
vacation really speaks volumes. It just goes to show, people are making
decisions about vacations, events, etc. based on how well it will post on
Facebook.

I think that's part of the reason ticket prices have gone through the roof for
sporting events. Before, you were only motivated to go to a game based on 1)
your desire to see the event live, and 2) your immediate circle of friends and
family who you could tell.

Now, all of your outer circle of friends, including the people you went to
school with, ex's, etc get to see how well you're living life, how successful
you are, etc.

It's really quite annoying and obnoxious.

Having taken a break from social media for about 3 months now, I'm realizing
just how evil it is.

------
tapatio
First world bullshit article. Move along.

