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WTF, Internet? Babies don’t need to define their ‘brand’ on Twitter

Molly McHugh
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WTF Internet 09_08_2013 main
Image used with permission by copyright holder

I will admit it: I’m one of them. Those negative, cynical people who are sick and tired of seeing their social feeds dominated by your damn baby. Unless I personally know said damn baby (my Godson gets a pass, as do select children whose parents I consider near and dear), I just don’t care.

I tried to care. I tried really hard. But I rarely do.

I don’t care that it was born, or that it had a first meal, or trip to the pumpkin patch, or haircut. But my generation grew up with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at our disposal, just begging us to shareshareSHARE. Share it all! And parents take that invitation seriously.

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To some extent, we all do. I overshare the things that are important to me and take up a significant amount of my time, too. That’s why you see so many pictures of dogs and tailgating and beers on my Instagram.

It’s not babies’ faults their parents are attention-mongering sycophants.

Here’s the difference: I realize how ridiculous it looks, and you should ignore it or make fun of it as you see fit. But if I make fun of the 18 identical photos of your infant, I’m the asshole. Sure, mock my Instagram of bottomless mimosa brunch! Please! But can I, in turn, pick on that picture where your kid sort of looks like a Gremlin? No? That’s off limits? I call conflict of interest!

I know there’s some backlash against the social media baby-hating trope – it’s not babies’ faults their parents are attention-mongering sycophants who can’t keep their hands off their iPhone camera and haven’t outgrown that crushing, all-consuming need for “Like” button reinforcement. It’s not babies’ faults that their folks just can’t decide on one filter, so they decide on them all.

I can only barely withstand my feed being filled with status updates and photos of these babies, but at least these are the parents. My actual friends. People who are adults, that I speak to, and have a relationship with, are the ones who write and upload content.

But alas, the last remaining piece of sanity in the social-baby madness is flying out the door, because some jerkoffs (who are considered social media elite) are creating Twitter accounts for their infants.

And what do faux baby tweets… sound like, you ask?

There you have it: The crazed musings of a bored mom or dad who has way too much damn time on their hands – which is insane given what pop culture has told me about early parenthood (that it’s time-consuming).

You monsters need to have your Internet connection taken away from you. Seriously, this is some delusional nonsense here. As ESPN and ABC reporter Darren Rovell told the Daily Intelligencer:

“Before I announced her name to the select people – before maybe it could get out – I locked down her name at Gmail, her dot-com, her Twitter handle. It was just an intellectual capital investment.”

“When do you become a brand? Some people say it’s for people who achieved something. I would argue that in some sense you become a brand when you’re born.”

For starters, there’s some weird “I am your creator!” stuff going on here. You aren’t just reserving a spot in Twitter for your offspring (which, in and of itself, is a crazy thing to do), you’re trying to determine its voice. Maybe your kid isn’t talking in a cutesy voice about its giraffe chew toy (Do we call them chew toys if they’re for babies and not dogs? Would appreciate an answer); maybe the child is all, “Hey dad, get the eff off Twitter you obsessive narcissist.”

How entirely weird would it be to go through your archive and read crap that your parents wrote for you? It’s like how we go through photo albums now and wonder about the matching cowboy outfits we had to wear in Sears photo sessions. Except it’s about a million times weirder.
Every single fiber of my being hopes that these kids grow up and all they want are handles like @s0phiaahh68787.

I know, I’m an old, childless, hag of a curmudgeon so who am I to give advice? But I’m going to anyway: Seriously, parents, give your children just one smidgen of a moment in their lives in which they won’t be connected. Where they don’t worry about “likes,” or profile pictures, or if anyone retweeted them. Just a brief, beautiful moment of only being themselves, the unfiltered version.

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Molly McHugh
Molly McHugh
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Before coming to Digital Trends, Molly worked as a freelance writer, occasional photographer, and general technical lackey…
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