Monday, January 9, 2012

Facebook vs. Flickr

A lot of the worst photos - worst in the most embarrassing sense - on this blog come to me from people who save the photos from their friends' Facebook accounts, and not ones I find publicly available on Flickr.

I have some qualms about this. Not because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but because I don't know how much of a purist I should be about the stated mission of "Pictures of Other People's Parties on Flickr". This blog is almost 4 years old (egads), and in 2008 Flickr was much something different than it is today. It seemed like the most important photo sharing site out there. It's still widely used, but it seems more and more that it's used by semi-pro photographers and color saturation enthusiasts. Facebook is now where regular people upload their party pics.

A big part of what I aimed at with this blog was a stern privacy warning - if you are dumb enough to post your photos in a totally public site like Flickr, then you have no way of stopping a shithead like me from making fun of you behind your back. What hubris to think that no one will make fun of you! However, I don't actually want to hurt anyone's feelings, and the handful of times people have asked me to take down their photos, I've always done it.

But Facebook is a different thing. You have a certain level of expectation of privacy on there compared to Flickr. If you set your permission for a photo so it's for "Friends" only, you aren't expecting that your so-called-friend is going to screenshot that photo and send it to a blog that makes fun of people. Also, for me I like the process of searching and finding pics myself. It feels like cheating for someone else to send me a cherry-picked photo from Facebook [NOTE: please do not stop sending me photos!!!].

Of course I'm not saying Facebook is good at privacy. It's a miserable hell-hole and I hate it and it's boring because your aunt and boss is on it, so no one ever posts anything funny or edgy anymore. Twitter is way better, and it's fun and cool stuff happens on there.

Anyway. Look.  I don't know what more I can say except I'm sorry for these two people in this photo, because their friend is a dick and sent this to me.  And there's no way I couldn't post this.  I wouldn't deprive my loyal readers (luv u guys <3 <3).  So enjoy:


9 comments:

rs said...

it's true, i am history's greatest monster. but this was too wonderful not to share

alxjrvs said...

Muttonchops here. Mr. Robert is a champion. After this, he need not buy me a birthday present. He is also not invited to my party.

Anonymous said...

hahahaha, the only two blogger sites I read randomly colliding here, hahahahahaha

Anonymous said...

i send ya a pic of some chicks dancing around in my room, then posted your page to their profiles and they shit and told me to get it taken down, which being a nice guy i asked you to do, to no avail. they both deleted me. fuck them anyway

Ugly Truth News said...

Wow! That's a hard looking woman.

Anonymous said...

<3 looks more like testicles with a small, pointy dick than it does a heart.

Anonymous said...

Is that Pink!?

Edward said...

I don't get it :(

Seaneen said...

Posting photos in an 'open forum' such as Flickr does not negate copyright... unless the people who took the photos are sending them to you, or there's an explicit sharing contract (Creative Commons), you're breaking all kinds of copyright laws.

American Copyright Law
§ 302. Duration of copyright: Works created on or after January 1, 1978
(a) In General. — Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death.

http://www.newmediarights.org/guide/legal/copyright/citizens_legal_guide_american_copyright_law