General Question

dalepetrie's avatar

Ever just "happen upon" pictures or videos of yourself on the internet that you didn't know existed?

Asked by dalepetrie (18024points) May 12th, 2009
17 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

Weirdest damn thing. I went to a concert about a month or so ago, small club, not a very well known band, but I’m a big fan so I was standing front row/center. Someone recorded the last song of the show from directly behind me, maybe a bit to my left, and posted it on YouTube. Anyway, was just looking at the band’s website on the message boards, saw someone posted a link to a YouTube clip of one song from the show I was at, I looked at it and there I was, very prominent through more than half the footage. Just curious if anyone else has experienced anything like this, and what you thought about it when it happened. To me it seems bizarre and just a bit creepy.

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Answers

hug_of_war's avatar

Yes, but nothiing so scandalous. Just posted pictures of me playing lacrosse in high school on our official site. I didn’t know about them until after I had graduated though.

dalepetrie's avatar

Did you feel weird when you saw those pictures? I guess if I’d actively participated in a sport it might not seem so weird. Though, you’re having said that reminded me that this isn’t the first time this has happened. My wife and I were looking at the website for our wedding photographer a couple years after we were married because we wanted to recommend him to someone, and our wedding picture was featured prominently on his site. That didn’t seem quite so strange to me…I guess it just seems more weird being on something like YouTube though, without knowing you’re there..very few people are going to come across a picture of a HS LaCrosse team or some photographer’s website, but YouTube….who knows? Though probably very few people will ever see this clip either.

La_chica_gomela's avatar

Yeah, I see pictures of myself at parties, events, etc on random people’s facebook pix and my hillel’s website, in their emails, etc. It was really really exciting the first few times. Now it’s not that big of a deal to me. I could see it it was a tape of me for like 30 minutes I’d be a little creeped out though.

dalepetrie's avatar

Yeah, I guess I don’t count on friends social networking sites, obviously everyone is in at least one of those pictures, but generally you remember that picture having been taken, you knew the person who took it and the person who posted it, and you’re not shocked when you go to a friend’s website and see a pic of yourself. I mean you’re just browsing the web and find pics or footage of yourself you didn’t know existed, taken and posted by someone you’ve never met, and the subject of the picture or the video has nothing to do with you, you were just a bystander. I think that’s what creeps me out a bit.

La_chica_gomela's avatar

@dalepetrie: I’m not just talking about friends though. I’m talking about random people I’ve never met too, and I don’t remember the picture being taken, and yeah, being just a bystander, not the subject of the picture.

ru2bz46's avatar

I found a picture of myself at a yoga workshop on somebody’s Facebook page. It was actually linked from the studio’s page, so it showed up in various locations (eventually, on a friend’s page).

Jack79's avatar

Yes, also on youtube, but I’m a singer so obviously it was something to be expected. They’re all videos from the same place though (just different gigs).

eponymoushipster's avatar

Yes, but she told me she deleted them.

No, just kidding. But I have found a picture of me. A former employer put a picture of me up on their facebook after i had quit.

also, i know there are quite a few pics of me online via youtube, stereogum, brooklyn vegan and others from shows I’ve attended.

ru2bz46's avatar

Oh, that reminds me of being in the audience of the State CIO’s recent discussion, which was filmed and placed on government sites.

dalepetrie's avatar

Were any of you kinda weirded out by it when you found yourselves, or what did you think about it?

ru2bz46's avatar

With the Facebook photo, I cropped out my face and used it as my profile picture. I saw the cameras at the CIO’s discussion, so I knew there was a possibility, so I was actually looking for myself once I happened upon the video.

eponymoushipster's avatar

I was weirded out by the facebook thing, because I no longer worked dor them and was not informed of it. Concerts, etc? Nah, we live in an age of digital camera phones.

dalepetrie's avatar

I guess I wouldn’t be so weirded out if I were just another face in a crowd shot, but because I was right up front, right in front of what they were shooting, the side of my face was like in 1/2 the video…I think that’s what made me feel a bit strange about it.

PapaLeo's avatar

Facebook is a heinous violation of privacy. You want to keep your private life? Don’t join.

And whatever you do, don’t ever, EVER, post your real name.

ru2bz46's avatar

@PapaLeo I only recently joined Facebook because I didn’t want everybody knowing my stuff. Then I wanted to find someone, so I fired it up. Once I started using it, I realized there was a lot about me that I didn’t care if the whole world knew. I also found the privacy settings, which are very granular to the point I can post things that only I can see. I can let three specifice people see other things. It is as private as I want it to be. Of course, I cannot stop someone else from posting a picture of me, but that goes for TV, radio, and billboards, too.

dalepetrie's avatar

Yeah, I’m always being tagged on facebook, I don’t think that’s all that big of a deal because someone would pretty much have to know the person doing the tagging to have any interest in checking out their pictures. What I was a bit weirded out was being on YouTube, because you don’t go to your friends’ YouTube accounts…you go there to see if hey, maybe there’s a clip of a moose taking a dump on a midget or something…or in my case, someone wants to see video of a band on their current tour, and maybe it’s only a few hundred people, but suddenly all these strangers are seeing a video of me watching a band…I just thought that was a bit creepy, moreso than friends posting pics of me on Facebook. It just added to the weirdness factor when I just stumbled upon it.

OneBadApple's avatar

This is the time we live in, I’m afraid.

A couple of years ago there was a story in our local paper about a young woman who started seeing huge photos of herself on the sides of buses, cheering at an Orlando Magic game.

She obtained a lawyer, received a quiet, undisclosed settlement, and all of the ads were taken down….

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