lifestyle

New Facebook trend on the way: Post your first ever profile picture.

It’s all over the US and because we’re a little slow here in Australia… expect this trend to hit within a week.

There’s a new Facebook trend you may have noticed.

It doesn’t involve stalking exes, throwing ice buckets over your head or nominating anyone to Nek a pint of beer.

Nope. It’s worse.

This Facebook trend is the kind that won’t cost you anything except pride, as you cry out “look at how thin/beautiful/wrinklefree/childfree I used to be!”

Because people are sharing their very first profile pictures.  It’s creatively called ‘the first profile picture challenge’.

Why? We’re not sure.  Some say it’s a nostalgia thing.  Some think it’s because the social media giant is about to turn 11.  But whatever it is, the profile pic throwback is catching on.

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Mia Freedman’s first profile pic. Her brother on the left. Possibly gel in the hair.

Once you’ve re-hashed your picture for the social media world to see, you nominate three others to do the same. That way, everyone can cry out about how badly they’ve aged in the last ten years.  WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

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Of course, there will be the odd surprise. Like the old pictures that crop up with ex-partners in them:

Brad Pitt has not responded to the first profile picture challenge.

 

And the campaign is not without it’s criticisms.  What a shock.

She speaks the truth.

 

But we love it.  Besides, who can be bothered going deep on the stalking anymore?

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Save it for Instagram.  Let’s just make this easy on everyone and bring them forth.

And for the complainers saying it’s just another self-promoting love- in for attention seeking people to love themselves even more? Well, duh. It’s Facebook.

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When Facebook was founded in 2004 the world was a different place. John Howard was PM.  Steve Irwin was still alive. Youtube didn’t even exist yet so no one even knew about cats riding on rhoombas in shark costumes chasing ducks.  Shannon Noll brought his flavour savour to number one in the charts

Flavour (savour) of the month.

 

.. And when we set up those fresh new account and posted those first pics, they were the innocent images of a life before the manufactured perfection of social media.  Before we were poked, tagged, asked to play Farmville or crush candy in a saga.

So if last year was the year of the viral charity campaign, and the year before that was the year of hotdog legs and being perfect, let this year be ‘hey look how daggy I was.  And still am’.

And aint it about time.

Here are our daggy first pics.  It may be called the ‘first facebook profile picture challenge’ but we like to call it ‘look at how young and fresh I looked then and oh my god what was I thinking’.