The Tyranny of Other People’s Vacation Photos (2016)

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...

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).

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

First world bullshit article. Move along.