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| Too many babies on your Facebook? Replace them with random awesome stuff |
I love a baby as much as the next person. Mmm, delicious, tasty ba - no, wait, wrong. Babies are so adorable, sweet and giggly 50% of the time, and you can dress them up in amazing outfits. At least, that's what I plan to do to my gorgeous new god daughter when her parents' backs are turned...
BUT.
As much as I love babies that I know, there are times when I just can't be bothered with reading about them any more. Then there are people who use their baby as their profile picture, which is one of the most godawful clichés and would only be acceptable if your child was being held Lion King-style and wearing some kind of leonine hat. Kudos to Chris Applegate on Twitter for finding this, and for putting his reasons for wanting it so aptly: "As much as I love my fecund friends...". Quite.
If it's a baby that I know popping up - brilliant! If it's a baby belonging to one of my friends - that's lovely! (Alex's baby is a total dish). But there are times when picture feeds become so relentless, so full of people I know holding Unknown Babies, that it's like living in Justin Bieber's head. Albums and albums of gormless creatures in my eyes, all of whom are less brilliant and beautiful than Known Babies, obviously.
With that in mind, I love Unbaby Me. Perfect for those times when if you see another baby you will probably scream. Just install it as a Chrome extension - if you don't have Chrome as a web browser, download it, it's free - then refresh Facebook, and any baby pictures will have been replaced with cats or awesome things. Thus handily saving all your enthusiasm for babies for the times when you actually see them in the flesh.
(* I am completely guilty of posting too many cat photos, and I posted a burger picture yesterday so in addition to my baby picture overdose, I'm basically hateful.)
Is there anything that will stop the baby conversations about the colour of poo? There's no Chrome add-on for that.
ReplyDeleteYes, using a picture of my child as my facebook picture is *obviously* so cliché.
ReplyDeleteWhat a pathetic post; the whole 'moaning about other people's children' thing is getting a bit old on here, to be honest.
A lot of the Domestic Sluttery team have children, Jessica. No moaning, just a little bit of fun.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear you're using a picture of your child as a Facebook picture Jessica.
DeleteI mean, I'm sorry that you think this is a pathetic post. I hoped that I'd made it clear that I am very fond of many babies - as Sian mentions, DS is home to some absolutely enchanting specimens.
It's just a bit of fun for when the Facebook feed gets filled up with a trillion photos of them, all at the same time, and you begin to long for the days of somebody poking you about bloody Farmville.
Very best wishes
Kat
I don't think we've ever moaned about other people's children. I like random blockers - my favourite was the Justin Bieber one, which blanked out his name whenever it appeared.
DeleteI have a Daily Mail blocker. Replaces DM links with tea and kittens.
Deletehttp://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/
Exactly. Just a bit of fun. I'm sure The Internet will soon come up with an extension that will enable people to block me when I go on about my cats, who are probably less deserving of the attention than children (but still pretty adorable).
DeleteJessica> Lots of people I know (including new parents, I might add) roll their eyes at people who replace their own image with a picture of their child on social networking sites, and actually, for those who can't have a child of their own, it's rather upsetting to see babies day in day out. Dunno if that has ever crossed your mind, but just putting it out there. I suspect that most people are aware, but consider their children to be more important than their friends' feelings.
DeleteI'm sorry you don't like the fact that this view exists, but it's a fairly common one and DS is certainly no guiltier than any other site of taking a view on that. I thought this post tackled this actually rather difficult topic really well and did not expect anyone to take offense.
I completely agree with the unbaby app's necessity, at work there are so many people with babies or going on maternity. But I disagree with the comment about this website being negative towards babies, I have never seen any comments about babies before!
ReplyDeleteWe have done some baby pieces - Sel's written about brilliant maternity clothes, Caleigh recently did a piece on baking kits for kids. Overall, pretty baby-positive. I'm pretty sure the mums on the team would tell us if we weren't being!
DeleteOh, yes. Weddingalbumbook. I'm more tolerant of that if there are professional photos, rather than blurry cake pictures and fuzzy dark first dance photos.
ReplyDeleteHaving a picture of your child as your Facebook profile is a bit bizarre, what are people actually *saying* when they do that? That's not the same as not liking other people's children. I like children, I like albums and I actually like looking at baby and wedding albums. Really. But I still think its tragic when women choose to portray themselves via their child.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen anything baby negative on here and the post seemed very diplomatic to me. It's a great idea, my non-babied up friends will stay my friends, they can just change the channel instead of getting frustrated when I gush about my (super awesomely beautiful) kids.
ReplyDeleteId download it but cats freak me out more than babies. I must be truly evil.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about cats? The fact that they carry on purring when they eat? That freaks me out a bit.
DeleteAs an aforementioned Team DS mum, I think this is a pretty good idea. I don't want to see pictures of my own kids all the time (mainly because I see their actual faces every day) so goodness knows why anyone else would!
ReplyDeleteI once dreamt that I breastfed my cat. That was weird.
ReplyDeleteThis comment wins. Everything.
DeleteI don't think a comment has ever made me laugh so hard before. Top marks, Nicola.
DeleteDear whoever created this beautiful add-on,
ReplyDeleteI cry tears of joy over your genius and will hold a celebratory bacon picnic in your honour <3
Lovely! Just had my first 'baby removed' appear in my news feed. Now a bit uncertain whether I should take a peep just in case I bump into the mum sometime .............
ReplyDelete