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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

"I went on a weekend trip and didn't invite friend A, so I hope friend B keeps it a secret and doesn't tell anyone I was there" is the kind of social dynamic that people grow out of in high school. If you are having trouble with it as an adult then it isn't really Instagram's fault. People talk to each other and share stuff, and sometimes they talk about you, both online and offline. Just live your life without being so bothered about offending other people. They are adults as well, and care about it less than you think.

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There’s value in grace. For all sorts of reasons you might be right to do things that make other people feel bad. That’s no reason to rub their nose in it.

What’s the virtue in offending people when you could instead be kind?

I know one woman who is having a baby shower, and I know another woman who recently dealt with the loss of her child. It’s not “secrecy” to celebrate the baby shower and avoid bringing it up with the recently bereaved, it’s respect and good taste.

I feel like we used to call it discretion…

The people being offended could just act like an adult.

If you want to go out with friend A but don't want friend B to see it for whatever reason (maybe B has a feud with A), then that is a thing between B and A, but not you.

I think the whole point of the OP comment is to just go with it. If you don't flauntingly advertise it, it is not your fault.

But in a very social media centric world, even if you are just a participant in a picture can feel like "flaunting it" to 3rd parties.

As someone who doesn't use any social media, this whole thread sound exhausting to have to worry about. "I shouldn't post X because Y might be offended at Z..." Holy crap, I feel vindicated for my decision to entirely stay off of this drama machine.

No, the drama machine is people. Social media is just the medium.

> I feel like we used to call it discretion…

That's a stretch, considering previous generations forbid people from discussing all manner of life issues and events out of "discretion", which in my estimation has been a key factor in perpetuating shame and all of the horrifying things that come from societal shame.

Secrecy isn't grace or discretion when it comes to vacations or baby showers.

Not bringing up a sensitive topic when interacting with someone is discretion. Hiding a major life event because it might trigger one person is silly.

There's a phase in a big chunk of people's lives where the only thing on their social media is about having a baby. If you're traumatized by that it's up to you, not everyone else, to keep it away from yourself (e.g. stay off social media or start a new profile and only follow hyperpop jazz trombone and COBOL enthusiasts... or whatever).

Not wanting to share your life on social media is one thing, picking and choosing to keep things secret from person A or B because of some drama or another is childish.

As someone whose wife has lost two pregnancies recently, please don’t assume this kind of thing.

I don’t want to be locked out of the joys of celebrating with friends due to misguided attempts to protect me. If going to a baby shower is going to be a problem, let me decide that.

I’m an adult, and I can use my words to say no for myself. For the record, our own experience hasn’t kept us from enjoying time with pregnant couples, children or babies.

On the other hand, if I found out that my friends were excluding me or my wife from social events, I would actually be upset at having my agency removed.

If the person suffering the loss has asked to not be included, that is different.

If a random guest came to me on my wedding day and said "I don't want you to post any photos of this event online because one of my friends just lost their spouse and I don't want them to see me at a wedding at this time", my response would (rightly) be - I'm sorry for their loss but that isn't going to stop me from celebrating my day in whatever way I see fit. Yes I obviously wouldn't go out of my way to call and tell the grieving person about how much fun I had, but people understand that life goes on, and the entire world doesn't have to be sanitized to meet individual people's preferences.

Less 'keep it secret' and more 'don't make a big public deal out of private memories'.

is a group trip a private memory?

Depends. Are you a spoilt rotten rich kid? Thats the only place I've seen this dynamic play out.

Yes, a big difference between 'telling your friends' in an offline social setting and broadcasting it online.

I've tried to incorporate the notion that it's none of my business what other people think of me. I don't always get it right, but having that attitude has helped tremendously on reducing my cortisol levels.

This is a huge relief, but it does come at a cost. What other people think of you is one of the largest inputs to access to jobs, sexual partners, and likelihood you'll be referred or witnessed against for prosecution for some inane zoning/HOA ordinance or petty crime (whether you did it or not) because you're not on someone's good side, etc etc. So the high cortisol levels may be warranted from the Darwinist perspective.

Having a good thing happen or preventing bad things from happening sadly show up as high stakes butterfly effects of the perverted social ranking and opinion games.

If you look at this from the perspective of the judicial system, a huge part of the judicial process exists to compel you to be physically present and in-person at a court room.

On the other hand, social media is really the pinnacle of "the court of public opinion"; people feel more comfortable seeing what photos and social groups you appear in as evidence of "who you are". He/she appears in <insert well established group here> and therefore must be <well-established person>.

Caring about what other people think of you doesn’t actually result in other people thinking more highly of you.

I have fallen into this trap (and still do from time to time) of trying to control the way other people perceive me. The thing is, it only works like half the time and often actually backfires.

There are two reasons this doesn’t work: 1) you’re spending energy trying to control others’ perception of you and 2) you don’t actually know what’s going on in someone else’s head, so a lot of the time that energy isn’t well spent

I don't think that's a fair reading of the post. They're not really complaining about particular friend dynamics where they're trying to keep information away from one friend while going out with another friend. The complaint is more about the society-wide change in norms brought about by social media. I don't think the author would complain about one close friend calling another close friend and sharing information about a trip the author was also on. The problem is that our modern norms (and tech) lead to everyone sharing everything with a large social network which includes many more people than an individual would normally be able to share stories with in person.

Sure, people talk to each other and share stuff. That doesn't magically make it ok for people to share stuff about you on a (public?) instagram account. There's a huge difference between those two dynamics.

It's fine to overshare as much of your life as you're comfortable with. But we should be more mindful of how we include others in this.

Not really. It hurts people's feelings to find out they weren't invited to something they thought they should have been. Protecting feelings and smoothing out awkward social dynamics are the the category of "very adult."

As a more general example, you wouldn't talk about a happy hour you were going to after work with people who weren't invited/aren't invited/you wouldn't invite. I believe every sitcom on the planet has at least one episode with this lesson in it.

It's both things. Being an adult means not being overly bothered if you weren't invited, and it's also very adult to prevent the situation where the uninvited friend doesn't find out, out of concern for their feelings. Both are simply approaching it from different ends.

I'm in my thirties now, and I have been on my own since I was homeless at sixteen. One thing I have learned about being an adult is it means that you have no obligation to seriously consider any other person's idea of what being an adult means.

I agree. The above poster is using an example for "adult" which seems ridiculously juvenile. If I spent one minute of my life figuring out how to "smooth-over" disgruntled happy-hour-non-invitees I would be inclined to beat my head against a wall on account of the absurdity.

We are in agreement

Either you invite them, or you own the decision not to. Pointless secrecy and "protecting feelings" doesn't benefit anyone.

> Either you invite them, or you own the decision not to.

Define "own the decision not to." Surely you don't mean that every time you are planning an event you must preemptively inform everyone who is not invited that they are not invited, because that's clearly ludicrous.

Or perhaps you did invite them, they just couldn't make it and you don't want to rub their nose in how good a time you all had when they may already be feeling disappointed about not being able to attend? Especially in the direct aftermath of the event?

It's called social etiquette and consideration. Sometimes it's misplaced; sometimes it's unneeded. But sometimes it is required.

Humans are not machines. Human interactions do not have many hard rules.

Good points! Totally agree that people care less than you think, and it’s very healthy to live your life without thinking you have to please everyone all the time. The nuance I tried to make, but I was perhaps not really clear, is that when people talk with each other, people have the chance to make sure a message comes across so that it does not offend a person. That chance for nuance is lost when people post on social media. Not that people do it deliberately, it’s just that social media is designed to be focused on the poster rather than on how that message makes certain people in the audience feel. And I do believe people are bothered not to offend someone, and that they are less likely to do so when you actually talk.

> If you are having trouble with [social dynamics] as an adult then it isn't really Instagram's fault.

Are you sure?

It's absolutely the fault of the mechanics and submission of our society to surveillance capitalism,

one which has been intentionally cultivated, exploited, and capitalized, by Meta,

so yes, it is Instagram's fault. They are the primary party—though I do not excuse those complicit with surveillance capitalism, meaning every person who continues despite unending evidence for how sociopathic and destructive the company, its management, and its impact is, to use their products. Which use however is also traceable in significant part back to Meta, via the ugly mechanics of exploitative and amoral engagement-engineering and their exploitation of monopoly.

This is a front upon which they might and should be confronted... a class action on behalf of those have not consented to participate in surviellance would be a lovely thing.

Under the current political shitshow, also in measurable part the "fault" of Meta, however, we can expect no such thing.

Lol, Meta apologists everywhere.

Rue the consequences of making working for Meta socially and career viable at leisure. Maybe in an El Salvador prison.

You're being downvoted for making the point a bit obtusely, but the general point is spot on. This culture of broadcast sharing with some imagined singlular hivemind is an opinionated policy, and certainly not the only way of socially interacting. Many people view different groups of friends as disparate communities and don't appreciate the social context collapse of them mixing. And even if everyone is friends, more people coming to an event doesn't always make for a better time.

The one-community broadcast-everything model has been embraced and encouraged by these surveillance-based businesses who don't want you to think too hard why they are also privy to all of your communications, and also want to drive the maximum number of interactions for "engagement" metrics. Non-corporate social media, "indie" web, and group chats are much more natural organic patterns of communication.

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