Phony Pictures on Social Media

As an instructor for home food production, it drives me batty to have a student approach me with some crazy picture they got off of some social media site showing an impossible garden situation. The, as yet non-educated novice gardener, wants me teach them how to duplicate this marvelous gardening success story. And often they suspect I’m a sorry excuse for a teacher because I can’t. Geez, I really cringe when I see one of those phony pictures pop up.

I can understand your frustration.

Although it is not only phony pictures that can frustrate though. When I was teaching welding, students would almost always brag about underwater welding thinking these guys make millions per hour doing the impossible. I was reminded that yesterday as we did some underwater welding. It is far more common than you think, so much so that underwater welders are not that well paid.

That being said, I would just tell the students, "if you want to be an underwater welder, join the US Navy because they do the most of it".

Depending on the age, it might be a good lesson on the merits of having not only healthy curiosity but also healthy suspicion of things that might be too good to be true. When they see a picture like that and it is amazing, perhaps a healthy exercise would be to have them look up a real avocado growing operation and compare/contrast the photos to spot what makes the real one real.

When I was young, I pretty much believed anything told to me to be true. Took some lumps and bumps to get to where I am now but a curious mind can be a heck of an inquisitive mind.

wow that doesn't look photoshopped at all!!!

I do think (the teacher in me never dies, despite career change) it's a good teaching moment. But always having to respond to this is exhausting.

I think every field has this. Any given day, my husband the mechanic will come home from the shop fuming about someone having insisted that they saw a video on youtube showing how to save money with a magnet in the gas tank/repair your own leaky radiator with something bizarre like sugar/a social media post saying that in fact XX repair only costs $ and Those Bad Mechanics are raking in the cash when they unfairly charge you $$$.

PT Barnum would have really enjoyed the age of photoshop and AI images, I bet.

Here’s one I was presented with yesterday at our farmers market. A lady wanted to know which variety it was so that she could grow those seeds too.  And she wanted to sell her excess cucumbers to me because she couldn’t eat that many.

Steve Zoma wrote:I can understand your frustration.

Although it is not only phony pictures that can frustrate though. When I was teaching welding, students would almost always brag about underwater welding thinking these guys make millions per hour doing the impossible. I was reminded that yesterday as we did some underwater welding. It is far more common than you think, so much so that underwater welders are not that well paid.

That being said, I would just tell the students, "if you want to be an underwater welder, join the US Navy because they do the most of it".

Once upon a time I was in the SF Bay area and had planned to meet up with someone who I corresponded with online. I called his mobile to confirm time and place, and he replied that he had been called to do an urgent job that day and was welding something underneath the Dumbarton bridge, and would be down there for a few more hours. We were driving across that very bridge when I was on the phone with him...wild coincidence.

Phil Stevens wrote:

Steve Zoma wrote:I can understand your frustration.

Although it is not only phony pictures that can frustrate though. When I was teaching welding, students would almost always brag about underwater welding thinking these guys make millions per hour doing the impossible. I was reminded that yesterday as we did some underwater welding. It is far more common than you think, so much so that underwater welders are not that well paid.

That being said, I would just tell the students, "if you want to be an underwater welder, join the US Navy because they do the most of it".

Once upon a time I was in the SF Bay area and had planned to meet up with someone who I corresponded with online. I called his mobile to confirm time and place, and he replied that he had been called to do an urgent job that day and was welding something underneath the Dumbarton bridge, and would be down there for a few more hours. We were driving across that very bridge when I was on the phone with him...wild coincidence.

Welding has been a good career. I have welded so many bridges, dams, and powerplants over the years that someone will name a city, or particular bridge and I think in my head, "yep, I did some welding on that bridge, or a some big well known part of that city". As I have aged some are gone now, like the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York, but others are still there like Boston's Big Dig Project, or see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and know my welds are still holding up.

It has been a good career, but I never had anyone drive over a project as I was in the midst of welding on one!

Now that I have moved on to providing power for the grid as an electrician, it is also gratifying.