If you're complaining about a picture that is highlighting the general theory that a certain group of people look exactly the same (take hipsters for example) - please make sure the subject of the photograph in question is actually you.
Because that's what one bloke did - one bearded, checkered-shirt wearing, beanie hat bossing bloke. Sound familiar?
So this guy actually threatened to sue the MIT Technology Review magazine after they published a story about 'The Hipster Effect' explaining reasons why anti-conformists end up looking the same.
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They used a Getty Images photo of said bearded man and another (bearded) man responded to the article thinking the image was him.
He wrote: "Your lack of basic journalistic ethics in both the manner in which you 'reported' this uncredited nonsense, and the slanderous, unnecessary use of my picture without permission demands a response, and I am, of course, pursuing legal action."
And. It. Wasn't. Him. URGH.
A few days ago we ran a piece in @techreview about some research purporting to explain the "hipster effect"âthe fact that nonconformists often end up nonconforming in the same way. We used a stock Getty photo of a hipster-ish-looking man. technologyreview.com/s/613034/the-hâŠ
Editor-in-chief of the MIT Technology Review, Gideon Lichfield, spoke to As It Happens host, Carol Off about the exchange.
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He explained: "He saw the article. He saw the photo. He thought the photo was of him. And he, I guess, maybe has something against hipsters or against being called a hipster. But he didn't like it. He wrote some things that were very uncomplimentary about the article itself."
He went on: "So in the end our creative director wrote to Getty Images and said: 'Look, we have an angry reader who doesn't like the way we used this photo. Could you check that you know that he signed a model release and the license is all in order?'
Now, as far as I know, calling someone a hipster isnât slander, no matter how much they may hate it. Still, we would never use a picture without the proper license or model release. So we checked the license. gettyimages.ca/detail/photo/sâŠ
"They have a team that deals with legal complaints and they went into their archive and checked the details and they came back to us and they said: 'Actually the model in this photo does not have the same name as the person who wrote to you'.
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"They wrote to him and said: 'We don't think this is you'. And he replied: 'Oh, I guess you're right, it's not'."
On Twitter, Gideon concluded: "In other words, the guy who'd threatened to sue us for misusing his image wasn't the one in the photo. He'd misidentified himself. All of which just proves the story we ran: Hipsters look so much alike that they can't even tell themselves apart from each other. /ENDS."
Featured Image Credit: GettyTopics:Â Viral, Entertainment, Weird