Reposting your first profile picture is the latest Facebook craze
adminComments Off on Reposting your first profile picture is the latest Facebook craze
By Caitlin DeweyThe Washington Post
Thu., Jan. 15, 2015
As if we needed more opportunities to embarrass ourselves on Facebook, the world’s largest social network is abuzz with a new and questionably worthwhile game: Essentially, you surface your first-ever Facebook profile picture — and then nominate three friends to do the same.
It’s unclear where this thing started, exactly, but some tech blogs have prematurely christened it the new Ice Bucket Challenge or Neknomination. And while it’s difficult to quantify or track the spread of memes on Facebook, the term “first profile picture” has been tweeted 3,600 times in the past day — frequently in contexts like this:
Facebook is abuzz with a new game: Post your first-ever Facebook profile picture — and then nominate your friends to do the same. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
“Not entirely sure why people are nominating each other to post their first profile picture on Facebook … what’s the point?” (Rachel @rachel_leahx)
C’mon, Rachel: This is Facebook. There is no point, per se.
But it’s easy to see how and why the “first profile picture” challenge has achieved some rapid virality. For starters, it relies on that sweet psychological mix of exhibitionism and peer pressure that propelled the Ice Bucket Challenge to global ubiquity: between that direct call to action from a personal friend, and the opportunity to show off how young/thin/hilarious you used to be, how can you not post, really?
Article Continued Below
On top of that, dredging up old photos taps into a universal nostalgia for an earlier time/self/social network. There’s an entire industry founded on these feels, actually, and business is booming. Recollect, a Web-based archiving service, promises to record “everything you do online” so that you can “find old memories” after the fact. TimeHop, an app whose sole purpose is surfacing things you’ve posted online in the past, is one of the App Store’s most popular social networking apps. (“Celebrate the best moments of the past with your friends,” it promises. “It’s like #tbt every day!”)
Don’t even get us started on #tbt: That schmaltzy, sepia-toned orgy of reminiscence has been celebrated some 300 million times on Instagram alone.
So give in, Rachels of the Internet! Like it or not, the grinning, flash-washed faces of a hundred younger Facebook friends are coming for your News Feed.
Take them as a reminder of a smaller, more innocent Internet — an Internet without dumb social “challenges” like these.
By Ofelia LegaspiSpecial to the Star Fri., Nov. 13, 2015 I’m a Millennial and I’m lucky. I was born in 1984, right on the cusp of the tech takeover. I recall text-commanded DOS computers, the grating sound of dial-up Internet and the advent of the first clunky cellphones the size of cordless receivers. Ofelia Legaspi […]
Blur’s Dave Rowntree has signed to an indie label for his debut album. The ‘Parklife’ group’s drummer has inked a deal with Cooking Vinyl for his first solo record, which is due out in 2022. The 57-year-old musician-and-composer said in a statement: “As a kid I used to spend hours spinning the dial on my […]
Francisco Martin is one of the most promising young artists on the music scene today. He may have made his way into the national spotlight by way of American Idol – but there’s no question he would have made his way there by now anyway thanks to his incredible voice, sun-lit hooks, sweet melodies, and […]
This website uses cookies to provide you with the best browsing experience.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/life/technology/2015/01/15/reposting-your-first-profile-picture-is-the-latest-facebook-craze/facebook.jpg)
