Everyone is guilty of at least one of these major profile picture sins. I will admit to having done a few of these in my online dating history.
The photos you will see in this series are actual photos of match.com members. I tracked all of them down (and more) in less than 20 minutes of profile surfing. That should give you an idea of how common these Deadly Sins crop up.
Fess up in the comments if you’ve done – or worse yet, ARE DOING – one of these Deadly Sins of Profile Pictures.
Click any picture to see the full-size version in all of it’s… glory?
The First Deadly Sin: The Disembodied Arm
This is an attempt to turn a good picture of you and your ex into a good picture of just you. Unfortunately, we can tell that’s a girl’s arm. We can totally tell it’s a girl’s arm. Since you’ve cropped her out of the picture, we’re going to assume it’s your ex.
Solution: If you’re going to crop a picture of you and your ex, crop extra close and just keep your face.
The Second Deadly Sin: Blurred Out Girl
Those who think through the Disembodied Arm Logic but fail to roll a high enough Intelligence check end up taking their pictures into Photoshop and blurring out the offensive woman. This of course, makes you look even stupider than having a disembodied arm on your shoulder. The same goes for blurring or blacking out the faces of your friends.
The Third Deadly Sin: Blacking/Whiting Out Your Ex or Friends
This looks even stupider than the blurred out friend. It’s one thing to fuzz a face for privacy, but it’s a whole other thing to click the Eraser tool and scratch them out, leaving giant misshapen holes.
Solution: Again, crop to just your face or… *gasp!* find another photo.
Coming Soon…
More Deadly Sins of Online Dating Profile Pictures, including The “Ladies Man” Photo, The Drunk Photo, and more!
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About e
The whole “hung-over, pointing camera at self from waist high” thing was real nice too! Really improves the bleach-blonde receeding hairline, cleverly masked by attempting to look like the lead singer from White Lion.
Darius Whiteplume´s last blog post..Nerd Girl of Note #5
…wow…people actually do this? X_X That’s…just…wow. How hard would it be to just snap a photo from a $20 webcam or a new photo from a cheap-end digital camera?
Sharky´s last blog post..Re: My Office
@ Darius – Ha!
@ Sharky – Actually, the $20 webcam photos are pretty awful, too!
Why is the last guy humping Chef Boyardee?…its kinda creepy.
e: Thanks
Matt: I was wondering about that one myself… Seems to say, “I get drunk and hump pizza parlor mascots.” The friend, who I imagine is whispering sweet nothings in his ear, doesn’t help – blacked-out or not. An all-around weird photo.
Darius Whiteplume´s last blog post..Tiny Adventures… Play while you sleep!
@ Matt – yeah, he’ll make another appearance in a future photo post.
@ Darius – It is a very weird photo. As a girl, you gotta figure… the guy will hump inanimate objects… hmmm… maybe not such a good idea to date him.
LOL…
I’m going to enjoy this series of blogs! =)
@ Loky – I’ve enjoyed researching/writing these!
I am NOT guilty of any of these pic faux pas. the whiteout/blacened out person in a pic is ridiculous first you tell everyone that its an old pic and second it makes you seem like you are hiding something