"For fucks sake! Not another god-damned baby photo!"
At first it was adorable, then it was cute, then it became quaint, and now you'll find that you are either ignored by your friends, or have less friends as a direct result of your obsession with plastering the internet with your childrens achievements.
We know who you are, and in all probability you know who you are as well... You're a serial baby photo poster. The people who think every burp, smile, slurp or shit is worth letting all of your contacts on facebook know about. Of course, you're not entirely to blame. When you had your baby, more people than ever before "liked" and commented on your status and photos, lulling you into a sense that your new found popularity was a direct result of your achievement (giving birth) rather than a sense of public or mob obligation to congratulate you. Either way, this early mob reinforcement is in part to blame for the continued barrage of pictures splayed online.
Well, I like so many of my friends who I have talked about this with, hated you...
...that was until I got a puppy.
Don't get me wrong. I still think you're pathetic, but I'm starting to understand you a little better, and perhaps even empathise with your need to post up a new picture or gushing-with-pride status update of your darling little one every second of the waking day.
Getting a puppy has filled me with what I can think are the most basic paternal feelings of pride and love (after all, it's a puppy and not the fruit of my loins), but even so I feel a need to post pictures of them online. I don't - or at least I don't feel like I bombard my immediate online community with canine baby snaps - but now I understand the desire to do so.
In three months of getting two new puppies I have uploaded twelve photos. Excessive? Perhaps, let me know in the comments if I have actually become one of these people. But now that the intial excitement is over (in regards to letting my friends check out my new pups) I don't feel the need to continue showing you my dogs. You know what they look like, and I'm fairly certain you've all seen a dog "sit", "beg", "roll over" and "fetch". And I can safely say with some certainty that there are dogs on YouTube that do it better anyway.
At the end of the day it's a parents right to be proud of their children, and even more so to boast about how gifted your little one is (or probably more realistically, how completely average their development is compared to every other child at that stage of life). I'm not writing this because I want you to stop posting up your nuisance photos or status updates. I, like every other person has the ability to hide/ignore you, or simply to un-friend you should I find you that annoying.
But in the off chance that you think your shit doesn't stink, and consider your posts in the same angelic way as you consider every non-achievement of your child, I am writing this to hopefully enlighten you that there are a large number of people who think your online persona is annoying, and perhaps even offensive or downright depressing (considering those out there who perhaps are struggling to have children that you may not be aware of).
But I suppose the real concern isn't about others who do this, but rather I'm concerned that I will be an offender of serial status updates, baby photos and videos. Perhaps - I have certainly exhibited the initial traits of a serial baby poster, but I've also been able to acknowlegde the fact. Hopefully I've shown enough refexivity that would enable me to realise that my child is just like all other children. Maybe if my child were some kind of savant or prodigy, or incredibly stupid, would I wish to promote or embarras them on the internet, but elsewise I hope that I'm aware enough to not indulge the inner sociopath in me.
I guess I won't really know till I have a child of my own... Until then, all I can do it what I always do.
Ignore. Unfriend. Be happy.
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