When your "Pop" is a well-respected photographer, the debate over Instagram privacy is a topic of dinner conversation. Alex Vadukul explains.
I don’t use Instagram, so I was happily ignorant of the photo’s existence for several days. But when a friend showed it to me, with likes and comments from both family friends and strangers, I felt great irritation towards the man who had posted it: my father.
The image is not offensive to the ordinary viewer. He took it during a family vacation many years ago. I’m standing with my twin sister under a large tropical tree. Leaves obscure some of my face. I’m wearing a necklace with a baby-sized metal dagger tied to it. My shirt has one too many buttons open. I’m a typical, awkward teenager on a vacation with his family. And that’s fine. Embarrassing photos are part of life.
But, I felt this particular moment belonged in the family photo album and nowhere else, especially not on a public Instagram account (that my father has a higher-than-average follower count does not help). Moreover, I have a thing about privacy, having always been mindful of my online footprint, and my father and family are well aware of this, as are my closest friends. I use TWITTER, but as it is largely text-based, I find it less intimate. Instagram is a visual trumpet to the world.
So, the main upset came down to a matter of principle. I realize pure privacy is a commodity these days, but I’d always liked to believe that at least those in my family could help me try to preserve some semblance of it (or at least appease my neurotics). I got over the photo quickly enough, but not before the disagreement ballooned into something bigger.
He was stubborn, if not aggressive, in defending the image. He refused to delete it. “You are my son, and to me you look beautiful in it. I have every right to post it,” he told me. This notion was sweet, but his deeper philosophical defense was less romantic: “If you do something that is captured on camera or recorded in some way, then I think, within reason, it is fair game to put on Instagram. Even years after it was taken.” He was probably taking a more extreme position in hopes of further irritating his son, but this is what the debate boiled down to.
In this age of scarcer privacy, what is fair to post? Just because we can post something, does that mean we should? And, as with my case, if someone values their privacy, do the people in their inner circle need to respect that online?
The debate started transcending the vacation photo, and we found ourselves having lengthy conversations about the matter, analyzing each side. Emotions cooled. The topic followed us around to family dinners and in conversations with friends. The disagreement effectively ended, and I think we both got something out of it.
I decided, whether I like it or not, that times have changed, and I should do a better job of accepting I can’t control every piece of information out there. Something, including an embarrassing family photo, is bound to slip through the cracks, and that’s just the way it’s going to be from now on. On his end, he agreed my argument had merit: We can do better when it comes to privacy, and that perhaps what makes some moments special is that we can only share them with those that were part of them, rather than with the whole world.
Neverthless, he never entirely backed down. He kept the photo online. But, he surprised me a week or so later. One day, without my prompting, he quietly removed the image from Instagram.
Alex Vadukul is a contributor to The New York Times and an editor for
I don’t use Instagram, so I was happily ignorant of the photo’s existence for several days. But when a friend showed it to me, with likes and comments from both family friends and strangers, I felt great irritation towards the man who had posted it: my father.
The image is not offensive to the ordinary viewer. He took it during a family vacation many years ago. I’m standing with my twin sister under a large tropical tree. Leaves obscure some of my face. I’m wearing a necklace with a baby-sized metal dagger tied to it. My shirt has one too many buttons open. I’m a typical, awkward teenager on a vacation with his family. And that’s fine. Embarrassing photos are part of life.
But, I felt this particular moment belonged in the family photo album and nowhere else, especially not on a public Instagram account (that my father has a higher-than-average follower count does not help). Moreover, I have a thing about privacy, having always been mindful of my online footprint, and my father and family are well aware of this, as are my closest friends. I use TWITTER, but as it is largely text-based, I find it less intimate. Instagram is a visual trumpet to the world.
So, the main upset came down to a matter of principle. I realize pure privacy is a commodity these days, but I’d always liked to believe that at least those in my family could help me try to preserve some semblance of it (or at least appease my neurotics). I got over the photo quickly enough, but not before the disagreement ballooned into something bigger.
He was stubborn, if not aggressive, in defending the image. He refused to delete it. “You are my son, and to me you look beautiful in it. I have every right to post it,” he told me. This notion was sweet, but his deeper philosophical defense was less romantic: “If you do something that is captured on camera or recorded in some way, then I think, within reason, it is fair game to put on Instagram. Even years after it was taken.” He was probably taking a more extreme position in hopes of further irritating his son, but this is what the debate boiled down to.
In this age of scarcer privacy, what is fair to post? Just because we can post something, does that mean we should? And, as with my case, if someone values their privacy, do the people in their inner circle need to respect that online?
The debate started transcending the vacation photo, and we found ourselves having lengthy conversations about the matter, analyzing each side. Emotions cooled. The topic followed us around to family dinners and in conversations with friends. The disagreement effectively ended, and I think we both got something out of it.
I decided, whether I like it or not, that times have changed, and I should do a better job of accepting I can’t control every piece of information out there. Something, including an embarrassing family photo, is bound to slip through the cracks, and that’s just the way it’s going to be from now on. On his end, he agreed my argument had merit: We can do better when it comes to privacy, and that perhaps what makes some moments special is that we can only share them with those that were part of them, rather than with the whole world.
Neverthless, he never entirely backed down. He kept the photo online. But, he surprised me a week or so later. One day, without my prompting, he quietly removed the image from Instagram.
Alex Vadukul is a contributor to The New York Times and an editor for