When the Joke Goes Too Far: Student Posture Pages

By: Rowan H. 

What does every bored highschool student do in their free time during school? The answer is probably scrolling through whatever social media they prefer. However, imagine you’re scrolling through your feed and an unsolicited picture of you taken by a stranger shows up on an anonymous “posture check” account. Not only are you embarrassed and feel violated, but what can you do? What do you do when the joke goes too far?

Social media is a huge piece of the new generation’s culture, especially the upperclassmen of 2025 who were born a year before or on the year of the invention of the first cell phone. As a generation, social media and cell phones are just a normal, integrated part of life. But as anyone knows, anybody with too much time on their hands will find something to do on the internet. Posture check accounts are the most popular on Instagram, which just started as a silly joke. People are allowed to submit photos of friends with bad posture and it gets posted as a little “ha-ha”, right? 

Posture accounts started adding rude and nasty bios to anonymous submitted photos which changed the entire dynamic of the account from silly jokes to public humiliation. On top of that, people started taking pictures of people minding their own business in class and submitting them. The anonymous factor adds onto the fact that the source is not traceable, so there are no consequences or confrontations; Usually, social media pages like that are anonymous as well so the whole slate is wiped clean. 

People get too confident from behind the screen and post rude comments on the posture pages of people they don’t even know. The most confusing feeling is being bullied anonymously and not having any way to defend yourself. However, if you get lucky, you can message the account and have your picture taken down. Other than that, there really is no way to reciprocate. 

Many other people took inspiration from the posture check accounts and opened their own versions like an account for people sleeping in class, people on their phones, pictures of peoples feet under stalls, and confession pages where you go and anonymously post confessions; among the confession submissions, there are people spreading nasty rumors about other people that can’t be traced back to the person. Because of these pages, more unsolicited pictures are being posted of people and bothering them. 

Allen L., a senior at Mountain Range, he shared his experience: “It started with my friend taking a photo of me. I thought it was funny and no big deal. But then, I was sleeping in my class with my head down and my photo ended up on the page. I was posted again by another person I didn’t know. For the periods the pictures were taken, I’d try and find the person cuz I’d sit in the same spot and try to catch them in the act, but after a while I just let it go.”  When asked if he believed the posture pages were used to bully disabled kids, he responded: “Most definitely.” 

The only way to resolve this issue is to treat the accounts with respect, even if they don’t respect people. Nobody can control social media 100% and so the accounts probably aren’t going anywhere. The only course of action is to have empathy and understand that maybe this person didn’t want to end up on the account at all, let alone want a bunch of hate comments from random people at school. Use the accounts responsibly and respect your peers and friends boundaries.