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Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

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Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#112
post #39

The first thing that struck me (After I got over the whole, creepy/horror/revulsion thing) was how much more fun people seemed in their social media lives. Rather than seeing this as an exposition of "people on social media are so much more bland than they appear" I found myself feeling "people on the subway are so much more beautiful and interesting in their 'real life'" I feel like that might be backwards from how…

> It's really interesting to be confronted with the realization that every single person filling up space on the subway around you has a rich and lustrous story that brought them to that place and time.

The dictionary of obscure sorrows[1] names this feeling "Sonder" The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness

1. it's a made-up word, not a formal English one. http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/s...

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#113
post #34

I am not sure this works or that success rates like claimed are possible: > In 70 percent of cases, he was quite easily able to identify the people he had photographed. VKontakte has 280m+ accounts and is the second most popular website in Russia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VK_%28social_networking%29); the Russian population is ~144m. I can't find any decent estimate of how many Russians use VK, but it seems to b…

Yep, and many of the photos presented on the page don't even look like the same person.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#114
post #2

The artist (or the article) suggests that the pictures he took on the metro are the 'real' person, whereas the pictures on the social site are the 'ideal' person. I'm not so sure. I think its very possible that the person in the social network photographs is actually far closer to the person they really are than the photo of them riding alone on the subway.

>> whereas the pictures on the social site are the 'ideal' person. Maybe it's that the picture on the web was chosen . Someone put thought into that, they said "oh hey I look good here", it's kinda like an ideal, or at least an above average view of themselves.

Just like in other social situations, people idealise themselves at work or when out with friends rather than presenting an evenly balanced image of their inner self.

It's more surprising when people "overshare" and detail intimate information about themselves IME.

Who looks through photos to choose to preserve and doesn't pick the one's in which they look "better", doubly so when sharing those photos in public?

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#115
post #14

And this is exactly why, 11 years ago, I set up Famipix (www.famipix.com).

Link is to a "private photo sharing" website.

I'm curious naskwo, it says in the tour "We don’t synchronise any content to any external sites or social networks." - this implies you don't have off-site backups?

Second, for the birthdays calendar do you do anything like attempting to recognise photos of birthdays and log them, or use image meta-data to do the same?

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#117

I don't see why this can't be done in real time. Point your phone towards a person in a cafe and immediately figure out her name, age, maybe relationship status, social class, augmented reality style. 5 minutes later accidentally bump into her .. and start a conversation, armed with lots of private info about the person. Or even more basic - thieves picking their targets - is this woman's purse likely to contain a lo…

Or, just refuse to be one of the sheep?

Personally, I see nothing wrong with one internet picture for all these social sites. I wear huge women's sunglasses on my one picture I put out there. It's probally against TOS, but who really cares? There's always another website.

That said, I've never had anyone pick me on my looks.

I need to put in time writing, or talking. It's a pain, but I've never liked knowing anyone in the world can download my image.

Actually, I don't like anyone taking my picture. My only pictures in school was k through 8th grade. I wasen't present for picture day in high school. College did get my mug.

My hope is it will become socially frowned upon to take anyone's picture without their consent.

Whenever I see that Shutter bug at social functions--I just with they would put down the camera, or take it out at end of the hootenanny?

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#118
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy moly, that's a very curious side effect of technology on culture. Crazy cyberpunk look necessary to avoid computerized detection. I can see this being the norm or strictly banned in the future.

my bet is on such looks being banned. What do you have to hide? /s

Banks in the US already have signs on the door prohibiting hats and sunglasses.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#119
post #2

The artist (or the article) suggests that the pictures he took on the metro are the 'real' person, whereas the pictures on the social site are the 'ideal' person. I'm not so sure. I think its very possible that the person in the social network photographs is actually far closer to the person they really are than the photo of them riding alone on the subway.

Art can make you think or feel, and this art certainly makes me imagine, regardless of the artist's intended message.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#120

I don't see why this can't be done in real time. Point your phone towards a person in a cafe and immediately figure out her name, age, maybe relationship status, social class, augmented reality style. 5 minutes later accidentally bump into her .. and start a conversation, armed with lots of private info about the person. Or even more basic - thieves picking their targets - is this woman's purse likely to contain a lo…

> But this is unavoidable, right? I don't think so, if you're happy to remain off social networks.

Don't Facebook already construct "ghost" profiles of people who aren't on FB but are mentioned/tagged in others' content? So when you eventually sign up they already know stuff about you, in which case even abstaining is not enough!
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