So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Trenchfriend]

If the left one is a sleepsuit, why it got a hoodie? More like a bathrobe?

 

[Zombie_61]

If the left one is a sleepsuit, why it got a hoodie? More like a bathrobe?

Yes, because it is a bathrobe. With a hood. In fact, both of the women in that photo are wearing bathrobes over their pajamas.

 

[Fifty150]

There's a website for people to post photos, of what they saw at Wal*Mart.

 

[Zombie_61]

There's a website for people to post photos, of what they saw at Wal*Mart.

Right, the "Walmartians" section of the Sad and Useless website. Before you click on the link, remember some things cannot be unseen.

 

[Fifty150]

 

[Fifty150]

So if we see someone in public who is not conventionally attractive, then post a photo of them on the internet for all to see, is that cyberbullying? Should people be ridiculed for appearing attractive?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Why post a photo of anyone who isn't you, or who isn't a public or historic figure, on the internet for any reason? What gives anyone the right to do that?

 

[Trenchfriend]

What gives anyone the right to do that?

German "KunstUrheberGesetz", as long as you don't show the faces without permission.

 

[tonyb]

Why post a photo of anyone who isn't you, or who isn't a public or historic figure, on the internet for any reason? What gives anyone the right to do that?

Rhetorical question, right?

It’s a mean thing to do, and voyeuristic, and tasteless. But to the best of my knowledge it’s legal all across this fair land.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It shouldn't be. If you can't control the right to the display of your own face and body, who should? Mark Zuckerberg? "But that would ruin social media!" Well, good, that's exactly what needs to happen.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
i can’t say I concur. But I think we can agree that media law has a lot of catching up to do with media itself.

I’d rather an image of me with a finger in my nostril while I was waiting at a red light not be spread far and wide. And it’s lost on me what entertainment value there might be in a photo of my butt crack taken as I bend over to retrieve a package off the porch. But I fear that laws written to address such things would serve to provide cover to illegal actors, or at least to make it more difficult to uncover their sinister deeds.

I accept that my image is captured numerous times on any given day, as is just about everyone’s. And that isn’t all bad. Knowing that they’re leaving a record ought to (and does) give pause to would-be evildoers.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Rhetorical question, right?

It’s a mean thing to do, and voyeuristic, and tasteless. But to the best of my knowledge it’s legal all across this fair land.

I always thought, the US must have a "Art Copyright Act" similar to the german. What's your Copyright Act?

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Even the courts can’t always agree on the answer to that question.

I once took a survey course on media law, as it was back then, before the Internet explosion. The course was designed to keep budding journalists from getting themselves and their publishers sued while still honestly reporting the news of the day.

There are violations of generally accepted journalistic ethics that aren’t necessarily violations of the law. Sometimes we humans have to police ourselves, lest we beg for government to do it for us.

 

[tonyb]

FWIW, this website is social media, of a sort.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A big reason why I rarely post photos of myself anywhere, except for intentional publicity shots.

Once your photo is out there, it's fair game for every creeper, jackass, and pervert on the web, to say nothing of the Internet Snarker crowd. There are many Loungers whose photos, posted here, have ended up fodder for public ridicule on other forums. Word to the wise.

 

[tonyb]

Our sense of what is private and what isn’t has undoubtedly been influenced by the digital revolution. Same for what topics are fit for discussion. It has made effectively obsolete certain time, place, and manner restrictions. (Does it matter anymore that an “adult” bookstore can’t be sited within 1,500 feet of a school building?)

 

[tonyb]

Once your photo is out there, it's fair game for every creeper, jackass, and pervert on the web, to say nothing of the Internet Snarker crowd. There are many Loungers whose photos, posted here, have ended up fodder for public ridicule on other forums. Word to the wise.

For far too many people, “freedom” means freedom to be an a**hole.

Isn’t there some online forum catering to fops that has members who get some creepy pleasure out of ridiculing the vintage-wearing fellows who post images of themselves here? I haven’t bothered looking it up myself (why subject myself to that?), but I have heard tell of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's a particular issue for women who post here, or who used to post here -- I know more than a few who stopped posting because they were sick of being hit on in various unsettling ways just because they'd posted a few pictures.

 

[Edward]

There are two basic, primal emotions: Love and Fear. Those who have nothing better to do with their time than upload photos onto the web designed to humiliate people because they look different, don't meet some subjective beauty standard, or choose to "dress weird" are striking out against that which they fear because it falls outwith their tiny-minded notions of what should be. Cyberbullies are truly pitiful.

Supermarket shopping, where you can witness a real life episode of: "What not to wear." Woe betide you though if you complain.
View attachment 376304
The two traveller women discovered they had been covertly photographed by another customer in the shop as they went to buy milk for a five-month-old baby at 7pm.
Chris Cooke wrote on Facebook, ‘Dear Tesco, please can you put a rule in place that people like this will not be served in your stores. It’s disgusting.’
One of the women a member of the travelling community, who asked not to be named said, ‘I’m disgusted that a man has taken our picture and put it online asking for Tesco to ban people wearing their pyjamas.

I remember the first 24 hour Tesco near my parents, about twenty odd years ago. THey actually put up a sign asking people not to come in in night attire after a short period. There was a time when it was briefly fashionable in some working class parts of Belfast for mainly young women to wear pyjamas as daywear. It's a logical extension of the fashion business selling "loungewear" alongside pyjamas, "loungewear" being something of a hybrid between tracksuits and pyjamas.

^^^^^
What am I not getting here? Are these not actually pajamas (or pyjamas, if you’d prefer), and therein lies the joke? Or is there something else in the photo that my tired old eyes aren’t picking up?

I clearly remember when women wore their hair in curlers while doing their grocery shopping. A scarf was often worn over those curlers, but not always. Not that it made much of a difference.

There’s a more-than-a-little cruel online community devoted to clandestinely taken photos of unattractive people dressed in their Tuesday worst, at supermarkets, mostly, and Walmart particularly. Yeah, it’s not a good look, but it’s not deserving of ridicule.

These sorts of images crop up in the media from time to time in the UK. There have been times and places (Belfast, Liverpool about a decade ago) where there was a localised fashion of a sort for all-day PJs (mostly among young women). Just last week I saw a photo of a family all in onesies - submitted to the publication by the family themselves. Supposedly they discovered the joy of onesies during the pandemic, and now both the adults work from home exclusively, so they and the kids, when not at school, supposedly wear nothing else now. They clearly want to be known as the onesie people, and enjoy the attention.

In the case above, I wouldn't rule out that a big part of why it hit the press would have been that they were travellers. The traveller culture has long done its own thing, and doesn't generally care for conforming to the sensibilities of those outside their community. Travellers are widely stereotyped and hated; for their own part, there are those within that community who also actively seek confrontation or at least react by playing up to the prejudicial image, so it can be an explosive mix.

Right, the "Walmartians" section of the Sad and Useless website. Before you click on the link, remember some things cannot be unseen.

I've heard of 'people of walmart', but Walmartians is an amusing term I've not previously encountered.

So if we see someone in public who is not conventionally attractive, then post a photo of them on the internet for all to see, is that cyberbullying? Should people be ridiculed for appearing attractive?

It absolutely can be. There's an unpleasant website around that is dedicated to photos of women eating on the London Underground, maintained by someone with a weird fixation on and disgust at women eating in public. Clearly a tiny-minded individual who hates women...

^^^^^
i can’t say I concur. But I think we can agree that media law has a lot of catching up to do with media itself.

Oh, ain't that the truth!

I always thought, the US must have a "Art Copyright Act" similar to the german. What's your Copyright Act?

Germany's expansive privacy laws which grant the individual a right over their own image are far from the norm in the English-speaking world. California and Tennessee have developed fairly sturdy image rights laws (for obvious reasons!), though enforcement is another matter for those who don't have money behind them (same as just about everything else when it comes to "access to justice", especially here in the UK).

Without heading into the politics of it, as surveillance capitalism has become such an interest, and a powerful one, here in the UK, I can't see much change in terms of giving individuals power over their own image.

Zuckerberg is far from alone in being 'to blame' here, but his rampant disregard for privacy has certainly not helped. Indeed, it was only when he bought so much land around his own home in order to keep onlookers away that it even became apparent that he doesn't care about others peoples' privacy, as distinct from being incapable of comprehending the concept.

 

[Edward]

For far too many people, “freedom” means freedom to be an a**hole.

Isn’t there some online forum catering to fops that has members who get some creepy pleasure out of ridiculing the vintage-wearing fellows who post images of themselves here? I haven’t bothered looking it up myself (why subject myself to that?), but I have heard tell of it.

I'm sure there is. There's also the detritus of half a dozen forums out there run by folks who had to be shown the door from this place. None of them seemed to last much more than a few months to a year, but then I guess there's only so many times they can tell each other how much cooler they are than the squares on TFL before they get bored and move on themselves.