I found some of your life

September 17, 2004 8:23 AM

I found some of your life. You are unknown to me. Your camera's memory card was in a taxi; I have it now. I am going to post one of your pictures each day. I will also narrate as if I were you. Maybe you will come here and reclaim this piece of your life. (via the Morning News)
posted by Ufez Jones (95 comments total)

This seems rather creepy and disquieting.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:29 AM on September 17, 2004

This is voyeuristic and dirty.
posted by the fire you left me at 8:32 AM on September 17, 2004

No, Jacquilynne, you don't get it do you? Bloggers have run out of completely pointless shit to talk about and this is the result. Yeah. Creepy is the word that popped into my head too. Why not try and locate the owner? Sheesh.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:32 AM on September 17, 2004

I have changed my mind about the Internet. The Internet is bad.
posted by gwint at 8:35 AM on September 17, 2004

Oh, fantastic, eightyfour photos of boring twenty-something white people at various events with their arms around each other.

Check out the complete lack of middle distance content!

Fascinating.
posted by jon_kill at 8:36 AM on September 17, 2004

From of the look of the pics, all he has to do to find the owner is post notices at the nearest frat and sorority houses. Whole lotta baseball caps per sq inch. Cute pic with the tennis skirts and sweaters tied around shoulders too.

Well somebody had to snark, right?
posted by Shane at 8:38 AM on September 17, 2004

This is voyeuristic and dirty.
posted by the fire you left me at 5:32 PM CET on September 17

I've often considered fraternities/sororities to be nothing more than sex clubs. Date rape is more or less the inevitable outcome of these collegiate Bacchanalian cults.

These images are voyeuristic and dirty, but a punch in the chest in a Nan Goldin sort of way.
posted by the fire you left me at 8:41 AM on September 17, 2004

This is pure brilliance.

Bloggers have run out of completely pointless shit to talk about and this is the result. Yeah. Creepy is the word that popped into my head too.

Blogger tired of the other bloggers who only talk about pointless shit. Decides to turn the thing on its head: talk about someone else's life (with photographic "proof"); use their imagination to add some personality to completely lifeless photos; make new use of found objects (something many of us have praised before) rather than just "Woohoo! I got a new camera card. Can't wait to format it!"

I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing but sure plan to. Thanks, Ufez!
posted by dobbs at 8:46 AM on September 17, 2004

This reminds me of an extremely creepy J-school classmate of mine who put up a similar page in 1999 about some guy's photo album he found in Kosovo. It was written in this serial killer style that was supposed to be dramatic but just came out skin-crawling: "Here are pictures of your daughters, Janko Jarovic. I wonder where they are now? You like driving your taxi, don't you, Janko?" Maybe I can find a link. The story got published in the Chronicle.
posted by inksyndicate at 8:55 AM on September 17, 2004

Imagine how brilliant this would be if it wasn't the finder of the card who was posting the photos, but the original owner.
posted by Blue Stone at 8:57 AM on September 17, 2004

Shane: snark aside, you are right about that. One of the girls shown has a lovely pin that says "I love Delta Delta Delta" (in greek characters of course).

Send a copy of that shot and the blog URL to the national HQ and the mystery would be solved in short order.
posted by smcniven at 8:58 AM on September 17, 2004

sorry, but [this is good]
posted by crawl at 9:04 AM on September 17, 2004

I found a digital camera in the woods a taxi.
posted by soyjoy at 9:06 AM on September 17, 2004

How come people can talk about "white people", implying blandness and often stupidity, without thinking twice, but talking about those black people is, like, bad?

Am wondering about that.
posted by xmutex at 9:12 AM on September 17, 2004

I found your to do/grocery list on the bus, watch for my novel soon at a bookstore near you.
posted by m@ at 9:15 AM on September 17, 2004

You might want to have your kneejerketer calibrated, xmutex.
posted by jon_kill at 9:16 AM on September 17, 2004

Yes, clearly your knee is jerking too far to the right, xmutex. Please report to the MeFi Reeducation Camp nearest you for immediate indoctrination enlightenment.
posted by keswick at 9:21 AM on September 17, 2004

I have to wonder about this:

The pictures on the memory card were taken over the course of exactly one (1) year in this person's life, starting July Twenty-Fifth, Two Thousand and Three (07-25-03) and ending July Twenty-Fourth, Two Thousand and Four (07-24-04).

I'm a suspicious person. I've come up with two explanations for this. The first is it is all to pat and the those pictures were taken by the blogger. The second, less likely possibility that springs to mind (I say less likely because the images are really, really dull) is that this was a deliberate "take pictures for a year and then 'lose' the media and see what happens" type of project. Compact media is getting cheap. It would not be too expensive to do this, make a bunch of copies and lose them then wait to see if any turn up. ... Actually, I might do this.
posted by Grod at 9:29 AM on September 17, 2004

it would help if the captions were amusing, or the photos interesting. maybe it makes more sense if you're the same age as these kids?
posted by andrew cooke at 9:35 AM on September 17, 2004

Oh, fantastic, eightyfour photos of boring twenty-something white people at various events with their arms around each other.

Wow, you're so edgy and irreverent

As opposed to 20-odd boring twenty something white people sitting at their computers snarking about it.

Infantile posturing like that to score cool points impresses no one, jon_kill.
posted by jonmc at 9:39 AM on September 17, 2004

jonmc, i think you forgot it seems to impress other infantile poseurs.
posted by keswick at 10:12 AM on September 17, 2004

What xmutex said.
posted by callmejay at 10:18 AM on September 17, 2004

You guys are forgetting that there is nothing interesting about these photos. I'm not trying to score points... with who, people I've never met, and probably never will? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I was just commenting on the state of amateur photography, and wondering what people could possibly find interesting about these particular photos. Even the most rudimentary reading of my comment will reveal that. Photos of various friends at events with their arms around eachother (watch as the project develops, 99% of the photos will be arm-draped) are about as boring as watching the paint dry if you aren't in them.

Had this been a memory card full of good photos without the PERSON IN FRONT BACKGROUND IN BACKGROUND ethos adhered to, I guess I wouldn't have said what I said.

Calling me infantile and saying I'm posturing because you don't agree with my opinion is just weak. But, the background is blue....
posted by jon_kill at 10:20 AM on September 17, 2004

The photos are boring and that's a valid criticism. So why drag the racial wiseassery into it?

That's what's infantile.
posted by jonmc at 10:24 AM on September 17, 2004

This is voyeuristic and dirty.
posted by the fire you left me at 5:32 PM CET on September 17

yes, i can see how it would seem that way to a poster who thinks everyone dies all over again every 9/11.
posted by quonsar at 10:27 AM on September 17, 2004

How come people can talk about "white people", implying blandness and often stupidity, without thinking twice, but talking about those black people is, like, bad?

I've always wondered why black people never obey crosswalk signals.
posted by the fire you left me at 10:34 AM on September 17, 2004

What racial wiseassery? All I said was "white".

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1830_305/ai_94044073

What I said to xmutex, about his kneejerk reaction, was absolutely valid. We have to stop walking around with this ten foot pole on these matters.
posted by jon_kill at 10:36 AM on September 17, 2004

The premise is admirable but christ, at least make an effort to try and find the owner before displaying their pics all over a web site. This just seems, on the surface at least, to be pretty hasty and opportunistic.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:41 AM on September 17, 2004

What racial wiseassery? All I said was "white".

Exactly, why specify the race of the people in the photos? If they were a bunch of carefully chosen multicultural people would the pictures be any less boring?
posted by jonmc at 10:43 AM on September 17, 2004

Okay, Jonmc, I can see you're fanatical. I'll stop now.
posted by jon_kill at 10:47 AM on September 17, 2004

More likely you don't have answer that dosen't make you sound like a pretentious wanker.

Typical gambit. Question anything and your a fanatic/freeper/neo-con/racist/sexist/homophobe. Whatever happened to actual debate?
posted by jonmc at 10:52 AM on September 17, 2004

Haha. I have to use that in an argument sometime.

Person: Blah blah, point, point. Argument. Point. Blah blah

Me: Okay, I can see you're fanatical. I'll stop now.

* walks away whistling *
posted by xmutex at 10:52 AM on September 17, 2004

Color me (oops!) skeptical. Anyway: Tri-delts and those they love at Vanderbilt.
posted by Dick Paris at 10:55 AM on September 17, 2004

I've often considered fraternities/sororities to be nothing more than sex clubs. Date rape is more or less the inevitable outcome of these collegiate Bacchanalian cults.

Oh please. My sorority was nothing like a sex club. We had fun. We went to lots of parties. There was sex. Yes, there was also rape. But I assure you that no more sex is happening at frat parties than any other house party around a campus. Get a group of 250 college age, drunk men & women, and sex happens, and RAPE sometimes happends. Frats/sororities have nothing to do with it. Except that frats are an easy thing to bash.
(Especially ones with such silly people as the people in these pictures. )
posted by aacheson at 11:01 AM on September 17, 2004

Last year I worked at a restaurant frequented by tourists and found a Flash memory card with a bunch of "Family Vacation" pictures on it.

Other than posting them on the web and hoping somone would see them, how else could I get them back to their rightful owner? (I was actually planning on doing some sort of similar blog/gallery, making up my own stories to keep it relatively interesting for everyone else.)
posted by quasistoic at 11:04 AM on September 17, 2004

aacheson: remember this the internet. It's peopled with those who spent their high school years getting their asses stomped and their college years in their rooms weeping over The Bell Jar & the Cure or playing Myst. They have to get their frustration out somewhere.
posted by jonmc at 11:06 AM on September 17, 2004

How come people can talk about "white people", implying blandness and often stupidity, without thinking twice, but talking about those black people is, like, bad?
Am wondering about that.

a few hundred years of oppression* endured by the latter ethnic group may have something to do with it.

and anyway white people in ties should avoid at all cost to wear baseball caps backwards

* (slavery, segregation, burning crosses et al)
posted by matteo at 11:06 AM on September 17, 2004

XMutex, he had no point. He said that pointing out that someone was white in the same sentence as a bunch of other adjectives was racist. That's not a point. That's a groundless assertion. Groundless assertions only count as points or arguments for fanatics. All those "blah blahs" in there hold more creedence than you had probably assigned to them.

And, ok, I don't feel like stopping, because you walked right into it, JonMC: I questioned something you believe and you called me a racist. I say that you're fanatical, implying an unreasonable devotion to a cause (that cause being, apparently, never mention the race of anybody), and that is true. I can barely see how a debate would develop in that context, but, okay, let's do it.
posted by jon_kill at 11:06 AM on September 17, 2004

You guys are forgetting that there is nothing interesting about these photos. [...] I was just commenting on the state of amateur photography, and wondering what people could possibly find interesting about these particular photos.

What makes you think the intent behind these photos was anything other than making strictly utilitarian snapshots? Don't you have family snapshots as well? Don't you find them interesting? What's wrong with other people finding them interesting as well? Especially when someone devotes a website to try to make them more interesting?

Snapshots are a pretty bad example of "amateur photography", as there's rarely any love for the photographic process and discipline behind snapshots, and amateurs by etymological definition do what they do out of love for what the subject is.

Not that I'd do something like this website to other people's snapshots, of course. But usually I find snapshots more interesting than the 100th zoo tiger picture posted by some hotshot with a big telephoto in the name of "art" and "nature photography." Snapshots or not, there's dreck everywhere, quoth the Sturgeon.
posted by DaShiv at 11:06 AM on September 17, 2004

This is brilliant! There's a comment that equates fraternities to date rape factories, but that's apparently okay with everyone. Let some white guy call other white people white, and it's time to call out the MeFi militia!
posted by Jart at 11:11 AM on September 17, 2004

jon_kill, you may possibly be the most obtuse person I've ever encountered.

Anyone with half a brain can see that used "white" as an intensifier of bland and boring. And since I'd hazard a guess that you're probably white yourself, I can only assume your motives are to show how cool you are. "Look I don't like white people either. Aren't I just so fucking liberated? huh?"

a few hundred years of oppression* endured by the latter ethnic group may have something to do with it.

And I'd be the last person to deny any of that history, matteo, but I don't see how replacing one prejudice with another is somehow productive. And I can tell you plenty of stories of people I know who've taken massive amounts of unwarranted shit for being white in the wrong place and time.

But it all comes down to this right: ....
posted by jonmc at 11:18 AM on September 17, 2004

*pokes head in, notices strangely tense vibe, heads back out*

Anyone seen the Friday Flash Fun up in here?....uh, never mind.
posted by freebird at 11:20 AM on September 17, 2004

Something new to note if everyones done being snarky...

Given the opportunity I would probably invent more wild and fantastic stories about these people to offset the total blandness of the photos. So far the author here seems to just like nitpicking on the style of the people in the photos. Very sarcastic and critical. Not so much fun to read. We need more background. Why do we care about Pesci?


although ripping on the guys trucker hat had merit.
posted by Parannoyed at 11:21 AM on September 17, 2004

Using white to specify blandness and stupidity is bad... It's just that, like using black to specify certain "ethnic" traits in a negative way, some people don't care.

A more accurate term for the folks in these photos would be fanatic freeper neo-con racist sexist homophobes.
posted by hoborg at 11:27 AM on September 17, 2004

jonmc, you probably think I'm obtuse because you've fallen victim to a particularly sinister mindset. I suggest you check out the article I linked up above, it reaffirmed a lot of what I suspected.

Now, if we want to talk about being cool, aacheson: remember this the internet. It's peopled with those who spent their high school years getting their asses stomped and their college years in their rooms weeping over The Bell Jar & the Cure or playing Myst. They have to get their frustration out somewhere., then this little doozy takes the cake. You certainly must have earned yourself a lot of self-esteem with this. A tidy little package of jockdom, right here.

Boring or not-boring, JonMC. Take your pick. How many times do you feel guilty when you laugh?
posted by jon_kill at 11:31 AM on September 17, 2004

A tidy little package of jockdom, right here.

I'm proud to say I haven't participated in any organized sports since little league. I had hair halfway down my back and spent most of my college years drunk or stoned. I don't belong to any fraternities. You know exactly dick about me but assume what you wish. But it sounds like my description hit close to home.

How many times do you feel guilty when you laugh?

Never.
posted by jonmc at 11:38 AM on September 17, 2004

In the ring and squaring off!

It's jonmc versus jon_kill!
posted by Shane at 11:43 AM on September 17, 2004

"This is voyeuristic and dirty."

About three years ago I found an envelope outside my office building, on a wall where people from various offices in the area sit to smoke and have lunch. The envelope contained a handful of photographic negatives, most of which looked like snapshots of a typical suburban Utah family vacation. One strip, however, contained some rather racy lingerie shots of the wife, taken in what appeared to be the back yard of their home.

For a few weeks I asked everyone I saw out there if they knew anyone who'd lost the envelope, but I never found the owner.

I think it's still in one of my desk drawers. Maybe I should have some prints made and post them on the Web. That would be voyeuristic and dirty.

This...eh, not so much.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:44 AM on September 17, 2004

In the ring and squaring off!

Over a batch of photos that somehow erupted into a race riot. This is pointless even if we have a point.

*throws up hands, goes for smoke**
posted by jonmc at 11:47 AM on September 17, 2004

Over a batch of photos that somehow erupted into a race riot.

I'll make this the last thing I say on the subject, promise: your use of the words race riot are exactly symptomatic of your problem.
posted by jon_kill at 11:53 AM on September 17, 2004

Wait don't go. I forgot which one of you is the racist.
posted by eatitlive at 12:01 PM on September 17, 2004

Neither of us really. We just seem to have got our wires crossed. And, no offense, but you don't know enough about me or how I live my life to tell me what my "problem" is. And I'll admit that the same is true of me for calling you out excessively.
posted by jonmc at 12:06 PM on September 17, 2004

nd I'd be the last person to deny any of that history, matteo, but I don't see how replacing one prejudice with another is somehow productive.

it's not prejudice. 10% of the US population is behind 90% of all the cool things that come from America (Spike Lee's guess, not mine, maybe the numbers are different but not significantly so).

and preppy white guys in backward hats do look like dicks. unless you think Vanilla Ice is cooler than DMX, which I don't think you do.

being colorblind is one (desirable) thing. being blind is entirely another
posted by matteo at 12:08 PM on September 17, 2004

Spike's a bit of a twat, matteo, but that's not what I was getting at.

And in the immortal words of Jim Goad: I'm neither a Negrophile or a Negrophobe, I'm for Negrofairness.

And I don't think your naive enough to make the claim that black people are incapable of bigotry (note, not racism because racism=prejudice + power). They may have more excuse for it, but every bigot I've ever met has some excuse buried in their head somewhere. The root causes of any racial prejudices are worth investigating, but that's for a sharper mind than mine.
posted by jonmc at 12:16 PM on September 17, 2004

jon_kill, the proper term is "white hat" not "whites".

with white hat, you get everything that you were alluding to without any of the racial problem.

and crash, please share :)
posted by Stynxno at 12:29 PM on September 17, 2004

I think the shots are fascinating, because even the most boring people have something interesting about them.

This "jordan" fellow is making up a story, and it drags in places the same way your life drags in places. The voyeur in me really digs this.

If whoever is the actual subject of these pictures finds the site and wants the shots taken down then they should stop. But until then, I don't see him writing anything insulting, racist, or otherwise derogatory.

There's nothing in the descriptions that your average fratboy (or frat friend) hasn't heard a million times, and there is nothing in the photos I saw that were scandalous or illegal (a couple of shots of drunk college kids in parking lots and at football games), and many of them have their own charm completely independent of the descriptions.

And yeah, they're white. Because they are. Just kind of happens that way sometimes.
posted by chicobangs at 12:31 PM on September 17, 2004

Spike's a bit of a twat, matteo
posted by jonmc at 9:16 PM CET on September 17

Your blue collar shtick always wears thin, but calling Spike Lee a "twat" is as vulgarly close to trailer park as I allow myself to encroach.
posted by the fire you left me at 12:40 PM on September 17, 2004

What, he's above criticism somehow?
posted by jonmc at 12:44 PM on September 17, 2004

Had jon_kill posted:
Oh, fantastic, eightyfour photos of boring twenty-something black people at various events with their arms around each other.

I would not have called him a racist for that either. Jonmc, you are reaching.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:51 PM on September 17, 2004

That's because he probably wouldn't have said it. And even if you wouldn't, somebody would have. Besides, now I'm pure evil for taking a shot a Spike Lee. Try to keep up.
posted by jonmc at 12:55 PM on September 17, 2004

OK. But first tell what page number of your autobiography this is from so I can get the reference correct:
remember this the internet. It's peopled with those who spent their high school years getting their asses stomped and their college years in their rooms weeping over The Bell Jar & the Cure or playing Myst. They have to get their frustration out somewhere
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:57 PM on September 17, 2004

That comment might have been a bit much, but stuff I care about and enjoy is pissed on all the time here. Turnabout is fair play.
posted by jonmc at 1:00 PM on September 17, 2004

As the old saying goes: If you can't take the piss, stay out of the urinal. And, please correct me if I'm wrong, are you saying that you care about white people? I don't mean anything by asking that, I'm just trying to put two and two together.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 1:05 PM on September 17, 2004

I care about all people, and I don't like prejudice or snobbery in any of it's forms. I'm just tired of the "wow, white people are lame" shtick coming from white people. It just seems like a transparent grab for coolness. Whethet jon_kill was going for that or not, I don't know.

And as long as I'm in the urinal, I assume I'm allowed to piss back.
posted by jonmc at 1:08 PM on September 17, 2004

Yes, just don't eat the cakes. But making fun of "your own kind" is a good thing, IMO. Take A Prairie Home companion, for example: Garrison is always making fun of WASPs. Is that a transparent grab for coolness? Or Chris Rock making fun of black people? It is just easier to make fun of ourselves. I'm not offended by that in anyway, although I see your point, I do think you went overboard.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 1:15 PM on September 17, 2004

jonmc, my genuine, real-life friend, no one pisses on the stuff you love on Mefi more than you do yourself.

When others don't join you in hating the things you love, you get ornery and post to the same thread over and over and over and over until you convince them that you are wrong/are a racist/have shitty taste in music/whatever. (Really. What requires you to have posted 15 times to this thread alone? Do you really feel that threatened by this discussion that you have to micromanage it like this?) You hijack entire otherwise useful threads to talk about how everyone must totally hate you and the things you love. Even if they don't. You barely listen.

You're better than this, jon. I've seen it. Put it back in your pants.



Anyway. On topic.

Creepy, disquieting, voyeuristic and dirty are why this project works at all.

I was actually thinking about taking pictures of my friends and the stuff I do, and posting them under a pseudonym, and making up entire new stories about who these people are. I'm guessing that's what this fellow has done. Good to see it work.

Sleuthing could bring forward the truth, but I don't see the harm in it as it's going right now.
posted by chicobangs at 1:17 PM on September 17, 2004

I'll admit to going overboard.

Hell, I think making fun of anybody is a good thing, if you have a point or manage to be funny. But it just seemed kinda out of place here. Plus, the whole "look at the dumb fratboys/preppies/cheerleaders" thing is so fucking high school level (and I was none of the above), so that's where the cure/myst crack came in.

For crying out loud, I heard enough of that shit from everybody back in school, I thought grownups gave it up.

Now, talking about found pictures and trying to reconstruct a story from them would have been interesting.

And I'm done.
posted by jonmc at 1:23 PM on September 17, 2004

I don't want to step in this one, but........

I found it kind of hard not to make fun of these people. In many ways they fufill that stereotype of "white people" to such an extent, it becomes impossible not to mention. Those are some of the most stereotypical white people I have ever seen. I mean,who wears a backwards ball cap, a button down blue shirt, a tie, and khakies to a football game? Or to a bar? White people don't make enough fun of white people if this is what white people want to look like. Just sayin it........
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:33 PM on September 17, 2004

I think jon_kill is pretty funny. I mean, for a white guy. ;)
posted by Hildegarde at 1:45 PM on September 17, 2004

Wait, strangeleftydoublethink.

Just don't eat the urinal cakes? What the fuck does that mean?

You're allowed to take the piss, just don't use use more than three paper towels thirty seconds after taking the piss! If you know what I mean!

While we're on the subject of transparent grabs at coolness, I want to say that I hate when American use the phrase taking the piss.
posted by xmutex at 1:52 PM on September 17, 2004

Wow. For a link that had nothing to do with war, politics, religion, or any of the MetaFilter Hot Topics™, this sure did turn into a stereotypical MeFi circle-jerk of egoism that has nothing to do with the link. Just not worth it to post links here any longer, I guess.
posted by Ufez Jones at 2:00 PM on September 17, 2004

For a link that had nothing to do with war, politics, religion, or any of the MetaFilter Hot Topics™

Think your title, I found some of your life, jinxed it ;D
posted by thomcatspike at 2:06 PM on September 17, 2004

The commentary could be better. Someone should hand the narration to the kids at Blacktable.com
posted by Dukebloo at 2:08 PM on September 17, 2004

Wow, What a retarded argument...

Now we can get this petty conversation on a new track, away from white, and towards retarded, where it belongs...

Anyway, those pictures are creepy. I wouldn't like if someone found a memory card of mine, and posted the contents on the internet. Seems like someone with too much time on their hands, with no appreciation for other people's things.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:24 PM on September 17, 2004

Ufez, chin up, pal. There's still lots to discuss here.


elwood, if you're in a frat and you go to Vandy (or someowhere nearby), then a backwards cap and a button-down work shirt is your standard uniform.

For where and who they are, these people are normal, inside and out. They're living a life I currently am not, and it seems you're not neither. We could mock them (and we are, and we will), but not only could they not be anyone else, they're perfectly suited for their environment: Future Corporate Worker, Present Party Animal.

It's like having a mullet, except it's, like, their whole being.
posted by chicobangs at 2:25 PM on September 17, 2004

I call sceptical as well. Flash media may be cheap but who leaves stuff from over a year period on flash media. Also how many of you have the restraint to only take one picture of an event; especially when using a cheap like borch per image digital camera?

If the author of these pages doesn't own the images and he doesn't have permission from the people displayed he's openning his self up to a world of hurt on both copyright and defamation suits.

Cool site none the less. I hope the author was just being all mocumentry.

As opposed to 20-odd boring twenty something white people sitting at their computers snarking about it.

I'd bet many of us haven't been 20 something in quite a while.
posted by Mitheral at 2:34 PM on September 17, 2004

Good lord, does every thread MiguelCardoso posts in have to turn into a thread about MiguelCardoso?!

oh, wait... sorry jonmc :)
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:54 PM on September 17, 2004

wtf, if its just a buch of girly pictures of "me and my friends" what the hells the point? dime a dozen, theres 10000000000 pictures of people and their stupid friends. im holden caulfield, signing off.
posted by Satapher at 3:28 PM on September 17, 2004

back to the unicorn penis post
posted by Satapher at 3:29 PM on September 17, 2004

jonmc did you quit smoking? if not, start.
posted by Satapher at 3:32 PM on September 17, 2004

For where and who they are, these people are normal, inside and out. They're living a life I currently am not, and it seems you're not neither.

Yes, I guess you're correct. It just seems like when I think of what the stereotype "white people" look like, they match these people perfectly. I shudder to think of these people being normal, but they probably are. I am getting out of touch living the life I lead.

That said, these people are a bunch of Whitey McWhitersons who took the cracker-train out of honky-ville.

C'mon that's a least kinda funny. No?
posted by elwoodwiles at 4:01 PM on September 17, 2004

I enjoy stuff like this, as I did with the book from Found magazine. It's just kind of an armchair anthropology, a bit of looking at the mundane though new eyes. Looking at others' pictures is kind of fascinating to me--it's fun to look at people in the backgrounds, in particular. And furniture. And how neat or clean people are at home. And facial expressions. Junk like that. I haven't really done that online though, with all those photo albums out there...hmm...

If these were my pictures with my friends, I couldn't see having a problem with it. The nature of the pictures is harmless enough. They're the kind of pictures people share. The silly comments are harmless enough. It is interesting to find out how long until, or if, they ever find these pages. I'd say it's just as likely they'll think it's kinda neat.

And they look like nice enough people in the photos. They're smiling, not stealing or committing hate crimes or such...at least not at this point in the photo series.
posted by troybob at 6:32 PM on September 17, 2004

These girls are living representatives of stereotypes ('cept maybe the one on the far right, with the curves - which I'm not knockin'). It looks like they came out of the country club in "Trading Places." If, in person, one of the ready-for-tennis girls spends her time reading Marxist-influenced Latin American literature or is an expert on narcoterrorism and nuclear disarmament or something, then I'd be wrong. But I get the feeling that I'm not.
posted by raysmj at 6:35 PM on September 17, 2004

Because it's all about how you dress.

Welcome to high school.

Ye Gods, I thought I was through with that. Damn!

Great link, ufez.
posted by Cyrano at 7:35 PM on September 17, 2004

I'm just tired of the "wow, white people are lame" shtick coming from white people.

Martin Mull is going DOWN!
posted by Vidiot at 7:49 PM on September 17, 2004

wow, I'm surprised how many people didn't enjoy the commentary. I thought it was pretty funny. And these guys really are scarily stereotypical in a way I didn't know actually manifested itself, which does make one wonder about the possibility of planning/faking the whole thing. On the other hand, they'd have to be pretty good actors to pull that off - these look like ordinary snapshots. I like how 'jordan' gets sort of involved in the world of the photos, names everyone, manages to keep track of who's who (I think), and I didn't think his commentary was mean. I don't think I'd be offended if these had been my photos, although for one thing they wouldn't have been, so... who knows.

aacheson, seems to me you only supported the argument... although I wouldn't distinguish between a frat party and a 'non-frat house party' - the point is that kind of partying environment, which is most evident in frats, results in a certain culture which you describe ('yeah, rape happens'). I went to a non-fratty college and there weren't 'house parties' - there were just parties at friend's houses.
posted by mdn at 10:45 AM on September 18, 2004

I don't think I'd be offended if these had been my photos, although for one thing they wouldn't have been, so... who knows.

Well, that's the exact point, and what I was trying to get at with my cure/myst comment. That just about everyone can be unfairly stereotyped by appearance or whatever, and that to do it is juvenile.

If I was at some other board, I'd hear dismissive comments about "art fags," "geeks," "hippies," and "goths." Here it's (fairly consistently) "fratboys," "jocks," and "rednecks."

I've never been a member of any of the groups mentioned above, but I've known good people in all of 'em. So can we please put the high school clique wars to bed?
posted by jonmc at 3:04 PM on September 18, 2004

Would whoever found my digital camera, lost in a sea of rental cars at LAX (didn't end up renting that car, so can never find it again) please post my pictures to the internet?
posted by loafingcactus at 2:01 PM on September 19, 2004

this is the funniest thread i've every read. There are literally tears streaming down my face.
(Not to make this all about me or anything...)
posted by goneill at 9:07 PM on September 19, 2004

For the record, the perpetrator of this site suddenly called it quits on 9/20/04, with a "That's It" post:

That's It
Sorry folks.

Contact: ifsoyl at gmail.com

[Thank you for all of the emails. I took the site down pre-emptively. I have not yet heard from the owner of the card. I will try to let you know.

Let me be very clear that I never intended to hurt or embarrass anyone. While I understand that this is a somewhat naive position to maintain, you must understand that the scope of this project grew far beyond my expectations in a very short period of time.

That having been said, I would like to formally apologize to all of those who were unknowingly involved.

Finally - yes, the celebrity was Vanilla Ice.]

No indication in prior posts that anything was amiss, other than a little discussion about whether the poster was violating the photographer's copyright.
posted by beagle at 7:37 AM on September 21, 2004

I'm with goneill
posted by adampsyche at 8:54 AM on September 21, 2004

I love this thread, actually, and kinda hate to see it die. FWIW, it warms my heart to see the stereotypes I hold validated so accurately everywhere I turn.
posted by hoborg at 9:19 AM on September 21, 2004

Damn, I wish I had seen this in time to view the pictures myself.

I had an interesting experience relating to leaving my camera in a taxicab, too. This was in Grenada, where the cab drivers are also tour guides, and will give you their card in the hopes that you'll call looking for a tour. I was able to contact the right cab driver and get my camera back, but I discovered that members of his family had played with it as well. The first few photos were very dark, but then they figured out how to work the flash. I now have a few pictures of some unknown Grenadian children.
posted by etoile at 11:37 AM on September 21, 2004

etoile: great souvenirs of that time a Grenadan cab driver helped you out by admitting he'd found your camera...

I also wish I'd seen them. Kept thinking, "when I get home..."
posted by lodurr at 7:38 AM on September 25, 2004

If anyone's still paying attention, I found a partial mirror/archive here. Low res but you get the idea.
posted by calwatch at 11:27 PM on October 3, 2004