My New... Fan?
So Strix sends me a link to her Flickr page, saying that I apparently have a new fan. She's noting that someone had favorited a picture of me that she had taken, wearing my Renaissance garb, at an SCA even that we had attended last winter. She noted that the quality of the photograph wasn't among her best, so it must have been the, ah, content (i.e. me) that made the person favorite the photo. Here is the incriminating evidence:
So I follow the link, and sure enough, someone had favorited it. I follow that link, and it shows me the user name of the favoritor, and I have never heard of this person before. So I follow another link to see other things this person has favorited, and I find seven pages of men of various sorts wearing leather, many of the kissing each other, and most of them in homoerotic situations.
I don't consider myself homophobic, but I am disturbed that someone has categorized a picture of myself in a purely non-sexual context along with dozens of pictures of other men kissing and groping each other and wearing chaps but very little else.
So, should I be disturbed, infuriated, flattered, fearful, or none of the above?
Comments
ha ha ha
All of the above!
PS - [This actually a great post]. Good job investigating, many people simply wouldn't do it. However, now you can take responsibility and action for someone using your photograph in a compromising context. It doesn't belong to them so they have no right. Anyways, this is why you will never see a well detailed full body/face image of myself that isn't art'd up in some funky way. Paranoid? Call it what you like... I like the anonymity and the decreased worry. Some ethical folks will ask permission, many will not.
1. flatters your ego whoever did it
2. already disturbs you, or
3. gives you blog material on a somewhat boring day.
The favoritor didn't exactly *use* the photo. Flickr is set up a little like vox. You can "fave" other people's photos, and thumbnails of those photos then appear in a sort of collage page (or pages, if you fave a lot). If I wanted, I could set all my photos so that others couldn't fave them. Or I could block this particular user, but that seems a particularly snarky thing to do.
Okay, I kept quiet because I wanted to see your comments, but here's my take on it.:
I'm not infuriated. Just not phobic enough for that. Besides, as Stina says, it's how Flickr is set up to be able to favorite various things. Some men would be, probably, but I just can't work up enough indignation.
Flattered? No.
Maybe I should be, but I'm not. No more so, I think, than most women would be if they had a picture posted of themselves in a purely non-sexual context, and some sleeze who favorites mostly soft-core porn favorited it. It's basically the same thing, except that I'm male.
Fearful? Nah, this guy doesn't know me from Adam. He's not going to track me down.
Disturbed? I guess irritated is the best word, but not enough to ask Stina to shut off his favorite privaleges or remove the photo. Unfortunately, when you post things to the Internet you don't always have control over what people use them for afterwards.
i think it's funny. being that you BLOGGED about it, it either obviously
1. flatters your ego whoever did it
no, not really.
2. already disturbs you, or
Somewhat, yes.
3. gives you blog material on a somewhat boring day.
Well, yes! I'm a blogger; this is what I do. Generated some discussion, too, didn't it?
I think it's within' everyone's rights to keep their photos outside of certain contexts. But that's just me. :-)
True, but one thing about the Internet is that you don't have control of who links to assets that you post. That's basically all he's done by favoriting it - created a link to it in a list of links to other items.
So, as Strix says, it's not really the same as using the photo for other purposes. He's just going to look at it.
In the dark.
Alone.
Ug.
A couple years ago, I ran into a paper journal article, someone I had met wrote about meeting me in a bar back when I was 20 or so. My name was not used but I knew it was me and I felt so embarrassed of my young self and exposed that I turned beet red at the computer.
You feel the way you feel about these things.