Some canât get enough of the photos of their friendsâ cuddly bundles of joy. Others have had too much.
A New York trio said a constant flood of baby pictures streaming through their Facebook feeds prompted the creation Unbaby.me, a Google Chrome browser application that swaps baby pictures on the social media site into random shots of cats, flowers and even bacon.
âYou end up lamenting the fact that it has devolved to just a near-constant stream of baby pictures,â Unbaby.me co-creator Chris Baker told CTV Edmonton.
He said the idea of Unbaby.me was conceived over drinks when Baker and his two friends realized they were suffering from baby-picture fatigue.
âIf all three of us were experiencing this, then itâs probably true for a whole lot more people,â said Baker.
The application looks for key words in Facebook photo posts, such as âpreciousâ and âso adorableâ and then replaces the image. The programâs default setting pulls cat photos from Instagram to substitute the baby picture, but users can also tailor their image choices.
Since the Google Chrome extension launched on Wednesday, it has received 38,000 Facebook âLikes.â
While the baby photo-swapper has quickly garnered fans, it has also left some proud moms offended.
âI post a lot of pictures of my own kids and I mostly do that for family members who are on Facebook,â said Tracey Lagerquist. âBeing a mother youâre obviously proud of your children. I guess you make an assumptionâŚthat your friends would be interested in seeing the pictures of your babies.â
However, Lagerquist said Facebook users always have the option of simply ignoring the baby pictures.
Added Aarthi Turcotte, âChanging a baby picture into an animal or a tree or a landscape picture, Iâm sorry I think my kid is cuter than a landscape picture.â
An Edmonton-based social media consultant said the popularity of Unbaby.me should have Facebook users mulling over their own social media etiquette.
âI donât know if itâs necessarily stating that we all hate babies, because I donât think thatâs the case. But I think that some people can overdo it,â said Walter Schwabe. âIf youâre doing anything that maybe is unbalanced, take a look at that.â
With a report from CTV Edmontonâs Sonia Sunger