What Not To Do When Your Mom Appears on People of Wal-Mart

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When will people learn? Repeat after NewsFeed: If you appear on the Internet, complaining about it to the media is only going to make it worse.

The website People of Walmart showcases user-submitted photos of people shopping at Wal-Mart, and it’s not a stretch to say that none of the photos are exactly flattering. The site, as msnbc.com puts it, is a “bottomless gallery of back fat, toothless grins, drawn-on eyebrows and varying degrees of sartorial misjudgment” and “the last place you’d want to find yourself.” Or, in this case, a loved one.

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Melanie Wheeler from Michigan was (unsurprisingly) upset when she saw that her mother was being featured on the site. What is surprising is the way she went about dealing with it.

Rather than email the site and ask them to take the photo down — the site’s FAQ’s say that if you appear on the site and don’t appreciate it, “Simply email us and we will take it down, no problem.  If you like your photo but hate the caption or comment send us an email and we can remove it.” — Wheeler instead chose to call Fox News to complain, thereby broadcasting the news that her mom had appeared on the unflattering site.

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Like so many regular people who innocently become the butt of an Internet joke, Wheeler’s mom, though likely humiliated, had the comfort of knowing that few people she actually knew would see her.

Well, until her daughter called the local media that is. (via MSNBC)