Starting a few days ago, I’ve had several FB friends share a photo of a 40-something man in a commuter train. The caption says:
If this is your husband, I have endured a 2 hour train ride from Philadelphia listening to this loser and his friends brag about their multiple affairs and how their wives are too stupid to catch on. Oh please repost …
First off, the thing that catches my eye is “Oh please repost …”. This is generally a plea for something to become viral. It is a red flag, usually, that the originator wants to see their handywork go viral.
Unfortunately, viral social media shaming and/or misrepresentation is a growing trend. Shortly after the Boston bombings, a photo circulated of a young girl running with a marathon bib. The caption said she was killed in the bombings. However,she is very much alive and was not in Boston. Her photo and the false caption went viral.
Other shocking news photos from the bombing, and from other parts of the world, have been circulated with false stories. Even photos of people holding signs, can be manipulated to show a different message.
In today’s age of instant sharing of memes and photos, we must pause a moment, apply some critical thinking, and decide if it is really prudent to share something that may be completely false. We should try to verify what we are about to share, and care for a moment about the person(s) in the photo. Is forwarding a false message any different than passing on hearsay or gossip? I think it is worse, in that a photo of a person (associated with a narrative) is much more damning and/or wrongfully-incriminating than just words.
In regards to the “cheating husband on the train”, see this piece in HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/07/is-this-your-husband-face_n_3405192.html
Most of the comments in the HuffPost piece imply that this person is a cheater, and talk about whether it is okay to publicly shame him. However, they completely overlook the fact that the story of this photo could be completely fictitious. This man in the photo could just be a guy on a train.
Is our collective anger at cheaters (of any kind, gender, etc.) so raw that we feel we must share this stuff as a means of revenge on the “cheating” bogeyman? Or is it just humorous that someone found a “creative” way of shaming someone by posting some narrative with their photo on FB?
We are living in the age of viral media. We have the option to use it on a whim, for fun (in most cases) or for social action causes, but we must be extra judicious when sharing photos of people with narratives like “this guy is a cheater” or “this child is my cousin and he has [insert health condition here], show him how many likes he can get!” or “this little girl survived the Boston bombings”. Think before you share.