Seasons of Grace
A new Google Chrome add-on blocks photos of babies, replacing them with jokes or political posts or photos of cats.
Unbaby.me is like… well, it’s like “Virtual Contraception.” According to MSN’s Tech and Gadgets blog, GeekTown, the add-on will replace baby photos on Facebook, the world’s most popular social network, with pictures of cats and whatever else it thinks is “awesome stuff.”
My son is of an age when many of his friends are settling down, marrying and starting a family. Still a bachelor, he hasn’t yet discovered that newborns are the most beautiful, most interesting topic in the world; so he installed the baby blocker. Now, when a proud mama posts photos of her beloved Clarice taking her first steps, Unbaby.me replaces it with a funny post. A user of the add-on plug can choose to look, instead, at cute kittens or fancy cars or pithy sayings from Walt Whitman, or any custom image-based RSS feed—whatever it is that floats his [virtual] boat.
The program relies on word cues: giveaway phrases like “first tooth” or “first steps” or “new baby.” Then, it replaces the photo with something that’s more likely to elicit wows from the registered baby-avoider.
According to Unbaby.me, babies are to be enjoyed and loved when you choose, and should be invisible to the disinterested the rest of the time. “They’re cute and wonderful, but sometimes the baby photo posting can get excessive and sickening. For many younger users on Facebook, they’ve gone from posting photos of themselves chugging kegs to posting pictures of their kids sucking on milk bottles…. We just wanted to bring the obvious baby problem to light,” explained Chris Baker, one of the founders.
Unbaby.me is not the first blocker to prevent undesired objects from displaying on your feed. Earlier content blockers have stopped fan photos of the mopheaded Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Nickelback and the Kardashians.
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