Posting your kids publicly online is the same as leaving them at a gas station
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Summary
Posting your kids publicly online is the same as leaving them at a gas station on a highway, according to one parent Kareem meets on the subway. She's got two girls and only posts them once a year, on Halloween, when they're in costume. A mild flex in disguise. Then she deletes it within eight hours. The conversation spirals into the horror of who's saving photos of random kids and why, the question of consent when your eighth-grade self is immortalized online forever, and whether abstinence from posting is the only real answer. Kareem agrees he'd ask his future kid for permission first, knowing full well she'd call him lame. It's completely open. Anyone could just look.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? Posting your kids publicly online is the same as leaving them at a gas station on a highway.
100% disagree. No. It's not the same. You don't know who hangs around there. You don't know who works there. You're just at a seedy gas station on the highway and they're alone. You have no idea what's—look, who's looking at your stuff?
The lurkers. Yep. You never know who's looking. That's true. The actual stuff. Even your email isn't safe.
Let me tell you something. Nothing's private. That's the way I look at it. I think of like everything is public. Even if I'm posting the back of their head or the side of their face, I think of it as I'm sharing this with 100% of the world right now.
So, you have kids? I do have kids. I have two girls.
And you've never shared them online? Um, one time on Halloween 'cause they're in a costume.
They were in disguise. And I'm very good at Halloween. And then I delete it within like 8 hours. So people get to be like, "Oh, Mom's really good at Halloween. This is a Halloween family." And then it gets deleted.
You can do a mild flex and then— Mild flex in disguise.
You know what? I would not want my parents to post me. That's actually the other side of it for me is consent. Like, imagine when you were in eighth grade. What if every photo of you from eighth grade is like lined up? And I know people that post their kids, and like that's not for the internet in 10 years when they're deciding who they want to be.
Right? When my kid grows up, I'm going to say, "Can I post this picture of you?" And she'll probably be like, "Oh my God, no, Dad. You're so lame." And you're like, "I'm not lame." It's kind of crazy to think that like when we post pictures of our kids literally just like on the grid, it's just open.
It's completely open. Anyone at any time could just look at your kid.
And then you look at the saves. The save is disgusting. I don't even want to talk about it.
Why are they saving? Like, this is just my kid with pizza in front of their face. You know what? If you're not comfortable leaving your kid at the mall all by themselves—
At a seedy gas station, not the mall. I think the mall—a seedy gas station. Wild West. There's hay blowing by in the road and you're like, "Bye." You know, they say, "Abstinence is the best policy."
I don't know if that applies here. What if you abstained from posting?
Oh yeah. I abstained from posting. I was like, "I guess the answer is don't make any kids.