Yes people put drunk pictures on Facebook & what of it? Why the media needs to grow up..

879 drunk facebook photo.jpg

Is it really that bad having a picture of yourself drunk on Facebook? I’m rarely particularly troubled by guilt over this in my personal life, but by god, this question comes up again and again in the media.

It’s all “SHOCK HORROR A Person Has Some Drinks at the Weekend, Here’s Proof. OMG”. Can I just clarify to the media, that alcohol consumption is socially acceptable in the UK. In many circles it is positively encouraged – you know – “work drinks”, “birthday drinks” etc.

As many people enjoy drinks and most people nowadays photograph themselves and their friends several times a day and often put the results on social networking sites, if I see a picture of someone on a night out, I am neither surprised nor shocked if there is a bottle of beer in their hands. Unless you’re one of those naked drunks or you’re an anti-alcohol campaigner, it’s just not that big a deal if there’s a picture of you drunk on Facebook, IMHO.

Mashable was guilty of preaching about this, in an article this morning “The First Thing Young Women Do in the Morning: Check Facebook” though I’d expect better of them being an on-the-zeitgeist publication about social media. I quote:

While some of the results are in line with previous studies we’ve read, others simply shocked us (e.g. 42% of young women think posting photos of themselves “visibly intoxicated” is okay).

and:

“54% of 18-24 year old women do not trust Facebook with their private information, and 89% agree that “you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see.” That seems contradictory to the 42% that think it’s fine to post pictures of themselves drunk.”

You know what? Most people’s parents probably do know they drink. I’m not going to repeat this point again. I am going to lay into Mashable though – cause I detect a hint of some patronising male attitudes in there: two in fact. A bit of the old “oh those silly 18-34 year old women, don’t they know what’s good for them”; and, number two – the idea (implicit, not stated) that it’s more shocking to see a woman drunk than a man. Those people can go back to the 1950s. And let me tell anyone in doubt here, there are lots of pictures of drunk men on Facebook.

No one asked your boss to go looking at your Facebook profile anyway, & what the hell did he expect to find? photographs of you poring over spreadsheets and motivational business books with your friends in your spare time? People who do care will just make their pictures private.

Okay so I’m part of the “Live Out Loud” generation and sorry if you don’t want to hear about it, but in the immortal YouTube retort: “if you don’t like it why did you watch it?”.

Related:

Anna Leach

17 comments

  • This article takes a deeper look into outstanding performance. Only want to say your article is awesome.

  • Social media like this type news. so people update news and picture in this site.

  • thus us nature of media, the media also need huge publicity for his channel on stupid news,

  • I believe in the spirit of what your article says. In a perfect world, we’d be able to post anything we wanted on Facebook and not face consequence for it. Our bosses, teachers, etc. would respect our right to live our lives on our own time the way we wanted and everything would be great.

    However, this isn’t a perfect world. Bosses, teachers and parents do check people’s Facebook profiles and photos and do use anything of a questionable nature they find on them against the people who posted them. I’ve heard of college students getting busted for underage drinking and of people being fired because their bosses found photos of them on Facebook drinking or using drugs. Remember what happened to Michael Phelps last year!

    So the bottom line is until either the laws or people’s attitude toward privacy and private life change, it’s best to protect yourself and make certain that you don’t leave stuff like that out in open view to be used against you.

  • i am week in guessing but i think it is want to famous facebook

  • Yah i also think that, if those people have drunk, so just leave it, why media publishing this issue.

  • There is nothing wrong in putting those drunk photos on facebook. Media is just making a mountain out of a mole hill.

  • haha, i was cracking up “what the hell did he expect to find? photographs of you poring over spreadsheets and motivational business books”

    nice article. i find that the whole privacy issue is being over-complicated. i see it as pretty simple – have clear controls over what is private and what is public, and who has access. I talk more about this on our blog if u’d like to read it, its on the url above

  • well some fair points Kelly, but marijuana is illegal, alcohol isn’t.. And it’s one thing if you go up to your boss and tell him/her how many sambucas you had on saturday, it’s another thing if they’re going through your facebook profile. You can’t stop your boss going to your local pub for example, but if s/he did, then they might reasonably expect to see you drinking. Facebook is a similar thing.. I think. It’s a personal space

  • I once joined a major police department. One question they asked during a background check questionnaire was “Have you ever smoked marijuana?” Everyone in the 1960’s and 70’s smoked pot at least once. So why is this a big deal? After I was in management I discovered that if you answered yes you were penalized for being stupid and answering yes, not for actually smoking the stuff. The same principle applies here. If you are indiscreet enough to post a drunken or compromising photo of yourself online, you may not be what a company is looking for as an employee. We all get drunk but we don’t brag about it in public if we want our professional reputation intact. In a world where I can get 100 good candidates for each job, why take someone with less than perfect discretion?

Comments are closed.