The Atlantic

The First Social-Media Babies Are Growing Up—And They’re Horrified

How would you feel if millions of people watched your childhood tantrums?
Source: Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Alex Zabusik / Getty.

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My baby pictures and videos are the standard compendium of embarrassment. I was photographed waddling in nothing but a diaper, filmed smearing food all over my face instead of eating it. But I’m old enough that the kompromat is safe in the confines of physical photo albums and VHS tapes in my parents’ attic. Even my earliest digital activity—posting emotional MySpace photo captions and homemade music videos—took place in the new and unsophisticated internet of the early 2000s, and has, blissfully, been lost

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