Post-Modern Drunk: Choosing A Profile Photo

This shouldn't be that hard, people. But some of you seem not to be aware of the rules surrounding your choice of profile photo for Facebook.

The rules are different than those surrounding an icon for, say, Last.Fm, Twitter, LiveJournal, GChat, etc. There, you can choose a zany icon, something funny, something impersonal. A celebrity, say, or a wacky image.

But on Facebook, your profile photo serves a very precise purpose, and in this age of ubiquitous digital cameras and webcams, there's no excuse for you not to be able to produce one or two to satisfy these guidelines.

The guiding rule for a Facebook Profile photo is simple recognizeability. People you haven't seen for a decade, along with people you just met last night, should be able to recognzie you from your photo. This is the foundation that all other rules spring from. Everything else is secondary.

1. Choose a headshot. We need to be able to see your face. Some tiny photo of you standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, your face dark from poor lighting, isn't going to cut it. The profile photo space is small--postal stamp sized. Save the tourist photos for the other photo pages. Give us a photo from your nipples on up, preferably.
2. Give us a photo of you. Not your kids. Not your cat. Not your kids and your cat. You talk about your kids and your cat too much as it is.
3. Photos of you holding someone else's kid are just creepy. Seriously.
4. Related to that, give us a photo of only you. Only you and you alone. Not you and your sorority sisters, or your buddies out for a night on the piss. It should be absolutely and immediately clear who is who. I'm less dogmatic about this when it comes to couples. In general, I'm against it, but it's usually clear who is who and it's hard to begrudge them their companionship and happiness. This is the only area where the rules are lenient.
5. Preferably give us a photo that was of you on your own, not you crouched over with half of someone's face cut off to your right. Everyone looks ridiculous posing for a group shot when they're taking out of context. Seriously, why does everyone develop a weird lean and a crouched back the moment a camera comes out?
6. You may think it's cute, but save the photos of you as a child for somewhere else. Use a current photo.
7. Hey, how about using an actual picture? Not a chart, a comic strip, a Simpsons icon, etc.
8. Unless you are actually a Crip, cut it out with the gang symbols, white girl.

Thank you, I hope this helps.

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