You Know What's Easier Than Slapping a Peach Emoji Over Your Child's Face?

There is a trend now among parents to blur or emoji their children’s faces before sharing a photo of them online. I suspect this is to protect the children’s privacy, and of course that is an admirable goal and we are humbled in the face of your demureness. But if you’re open to hearing it, I might have a better suggestion — and a simpler one.

How about just don’t post those photos at all?

I’ve done no research, but I think this behavior has trickled down from the social media use of the famous. And if you’re a famous person, I can understand feeling the need to share intimate parts of your life while wanting to retain some privacy. You likely see it as part of your “job.” I personally don’t think you have to share those intimate parts of your life nor do I think it is part of your job, and you should probably examine whether you’re telling yourself that it is part of your job in order to feed a bottomless need for attention. But I get it, and more importantly I don’t care. The famous get a pass.

Here, I am speaking specifically to the non-famous, i.e., the people I know personally. You don’t need to do this. Speaking on behalf of the people who know you personally and follow you on social media: We do not need to see the faceless body of your child.

It is as if you feel we are like this: Please, my friend — PLEASE! We are starving, desperate, foaming at the mouth for just the tiniest taste, just one sweet morsel of fav-able proof that your child exists! WE NEED PROOF! We need to see the legs, THE ARMS, THE TORSO, PLEASE! ANYTHING! ANYTHING AT ALL!

But I assure you we are not, and in fact we are more like this: Why did my friend put a butt emoji over their kid’s face...

“But I’m doing this for family members,” maybe you’d say. “They like to see the kids. So it’s a compromise; I share the photos, but I don’t post faces. It’s as much about personal privacy as it is about not leaving a trail of facial recognition data.”

Yes, yes, I know. But do you know what your relatives would love more than mindlessly scrolling past very scary faceless playground photos on social media? A personalized text. “Hey mom, just wanted to share some pics from the playground today!” “Hey Aunt Eileen, the boys say hi!” My heart is warmed just imagining it.

A friend brought up the fact that this behavior is somewhat similar to that of people who post photos of their pets but put an emoji over the genitalia. I agree. We don’t need to be doing that either. You are all absolute weirdos.