We’ve all been there before. You’re lying in your bed and you hear your phone ‘ding!’ A Facebook notification appears. You click it only to find that someone has unearthed picture proof from your middle-school years. Now you understand why your mother didn’t want you to have a Facebook account in sixth grade—to avoid future embarrassment.
But don’t jump to the delete button quite yet! There are a few things that you can learn from your Facebook pictures. Here are some of the different types of embarrassing pictures that may resurface and what you can learn from them:
1. Over-edited and Low Resolution
The summer after seventh-grade I joined my sister and friend to a small swimming hole in the mountains. My mom snapped some obviously terrible quality pictures on her Blackberry, which I then tried to improve my using several filters and text boxes on the classic picnik.com.
Lesson: Over the years, it has become easier to tag people in your pictures to identify them, rather than pasting their name over the images. Also, I have come to learn that there is no need for such a heavily saturated filter when natural lighting is working in your favor.
2. Strange Posing
For years, my family always poked fun at me for making this pose during pictures. My head is tilted at an unnatural angle that makes me look like I’m mid-exorcism and the rest of my body is extremely stiff. Between the North Face jacket and the overly waxed eyebrows, this picture could not scream middle school any more. A similar snap made it to our Christmas card this year, meaning it remains to live on my family members’ fridges.
Lesson: After continuously and unknowingly popping my head to the side when a camera shows up, I finally learned to look natural and normal in photographs. As for the extreme arched eyebrows, I now know not to trust anyone but myself with my naturally bushy brows.
3. Flat-Out Embarrassing
This was taken during a family vacation to Yellowstone, but this picture is far from postcard material. I had been dying my hair different drugstore box colors for a bit, leading to this weird orange color. The wired frames added to this classic pre-pubescent ensemble. It’s clear that this is the epitome of the ‘awkward phase’, but everyone grows up and learns from their mistakes.
Lesson: Thankfully, I have since learned how to dress and how to properly color and style my hair. I have also retired these glasses for contact lenses and much more fashionable lenses. You can’t change your past, but luckily, this snapshot from my past allows me to look back and giggle.
5. The Underwater Photoshoot
This exemplifies a genre of picture that was prevalent during young teen and tween years: the underwater picture. Our young minds assumed that if someone had a waterproof phone case or camera, we should try to be models in the ocean. This never looks as graceful as you would imagine.
Lesson: Going in the ocean while wearing contacts may sting horribly, but it is better than having photographic proof of wearing goggles. Also, I have learned that I will never be a VS Swimsuit model, and I should leave posing by and in the ocean to the professionals. However, I am not as embarrassed as I should be by this picture, for it brings back great memories of a fun trip to the Bahamas with friends.
6. Pre-Teen Angst and Colorful Clothes
After a roller-skating birthday party, we went back to a friend’s house for a classic middle school sleepover. This snapshot was taken as we all gossiped on the trampoline whilst wearing a fair share of neon, glow sticks and crazy prints. The only thing this picture is missing is a few peace signs and duck faces.
Lesson: I remember feeling self-conscious when I took this picture, hence me being the only one wearing jeans. I wish I had more confidence around my friends at the time. Now I cherish this picture for showing me how goofy and fun you can be when you’re around friends who accept you no matter what, and I wish I had kept a closer relationship with some of these people over the years. When you are around your friends, feel free to take some of the silliest and most genuine pictures in the world—just be careful about which ones end up online.
Sorry to Jenna, Aspen, Evan, and anyone else whom I may have embarrassed in the process of writing this article.