Untagging Facebook photos
Extreme tagging
I just went through Facebook and untagged a number of older photos. For those of you who aren’t familiar, “tagging” in Facebook allows you to highlight different people in a photo, so you can more easily search for them. For example, from this past Halloween, a picture of me and my roommates would be tagged as Rebecca, A, and P. So if you clicked on “Rebecca’s Pictures,” it’d show up, as it would for clicking on A or P’s pictures.
“Untagging” lets you remove yourself from pictures where you either aren’t actually present or (more commonly) where you don’t want people to be able to easily say, “Oh, look! It’s _____”
I debated for a little while whether or not I wanted to untag these pre-transition pictures. I don’t like the connotations of revising history, or implying I wasn’t actually there. But ultimately I decided that it doesn’t erase the pictures, and I could go back and retag them at a latter date. It’s like I’m taking them down off a wall, not burning them or destroying them entirely.
And it makes me really uncomfortable when I look at my photo album on Facebook to see pictures from prom or friends’ weddings or graduation random nights of hanging out where I’m A) hairy and B) usually looking unhappy.
That’s the biggest think I noticed while untagging these pictures, most of which I’ve avoided looking at for months, if not years: I look much happier in recent (mid-transition) pictures than I did before I started transitioning.
It’s not universal. There are definitely older pictures where I look like I’m having a good time, or newer pictures where I don’t. But, on the whole, my smile seems larger and more genuine in my recent pictures.
Not something I expected to discover, but a welcome discovery all the same.
A recent photo where I _don't_ look like I want to escape my life
Themocracy
I’ve done a similar thing, untagging old photos of me. In fact, a big reason I joined facebook was so that I would actually have control over where my name appeared next to old photos.
It’s a whole awkward situation when those old photos are posted by family, and I feel like I risk insulting them by untagging myself.
Yeah, it’s really tough. ultimately, though, I think we get to decide how our image is presented to the world. (Hopefully!)
You’re doing better than me. In my pre-facebook transition many years ago I burned all the pre-transition pictures, including the ones my parents had. Probably not my smartest move ever, but it did make me feel good at the time.
Of course my sister had a couple, which have survived. Looking at them is very, very strange.
I don’t think it’s a better or worse kind of thing. As you said, it made you feel good, and was the right decision at the time. I’m hoping there’ll be a time when I’m glad I didn’t burn my photos, and am OK looking at ‘em, but I’m not there yet…