Did I ever tell you about the time I became a meme?
I’m not sure how it happened. Or when, or why, but one day I was tagged in the comments of a photo on Facebook with over 12 million likes. “Tamsin, is this you?”
And it was.
That’s me. Asleep on the couch, who knows when, with my cat, under a blanket my mother in law made for me.
At first I was surprised, then shocked, and mostly I think it’s cool (and want to know where my internet money is) but it does bring home a very important lesson:
Anything you put online is there in the public sphere for ever.
You have no control over what happens to it, who takes it, who does something with it or why.
I’m just lucky my meme is funny and not offensive, and not being used to garner likes for some stupid Facebook page preying on the innocent. Well, I’m not sure about the last bit as I have no idea how many times it’s been shared – a quick google image search gave me more results than I thought possible.
You may not even remember writing that stupid poem, or taking that silly photo, but that doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t. I don’t know when this photo was taken or even where they got it from or how, but they did.
They found it, they stole it, and they slapped a caption on it to make a point. I’m one of the lucky ones. Not too long ago my friend Carly Findlay had her photo stolen and posted with not so nice comments. Her experience was even reported on
This year I saw a new version of the meme.
The best bit? This was taken at least 5 years ago.
Have you ever had your photo stolen?
