Tips for handling embarrassing pictures of you on Facebook

We all have those momentary lapses in judgment.  You know, the one where you really thought it would be a good idea to show your underwear while dancing on the coffee table.  Unfortunately, the age of social networking sites means those embarrassing moments aren’t always as easy for us to forget as we’d like.  When embarrassing photos show up on Facebook, follow some of these tips for dealing with it.

1. De-tag

Though you can’t delete a photo that someone else has uploaded, you can remove your tag from the photo.  This means that the picture won’t show up when other users click on the “Pictures of You” link, and it won’t show up if someone searches for your name. 

This should take care of most of your worries if they’re of a professional nature.  It isn’t likely that your place of business is going to be sifting through your friends’ old pictures, so as long as your name is unattached, you should be fine. 

2. Set Privacy Settings

If you don’t want to de-tag a picture of yourself, you can set your privacy settings such that others can’t see pictures of you unless they are friends, or unless they are in specific groups of friends.  Unfortunately, you can’t use this feature for only specific pictures; it’s all or none.  But it is still a relatively simple solution for dealing with those less-than-flattering pics that tend to surface after party nights.

3. Laugh Along

If the picture in question is more unflattering than embarrassing, and if you don’t want to actually remove your tag, one way to swallow the social shame is to simple make a comment on the picture about how bad it is.  After all, learning to laugh at yourself is a hard but valuable lesson. 

4. Request the Pic be Taken Down

As I said before, you can’t delete a photo that someone else has taken of you, but hopefully anyone who had the opportunity to snap an embarrassing pic of you is somewhat considered your friend.  If the pic is really so bad that you can’t imagine it stays up on the internet at all, just contact your friend and politely explain the situation.  Most reasonable people will be more than happy to oblige and remove the pic. 

Finding an embarrassing pic of yourself up on Facebook is not the end of the world.  There are many ways you can handle it to make sure that your lapse of judgment on Friday night doesn’t cost you a job later down the road.