From the time I was little, my parents had beaten into my head not to smoke. But it wasn't just them, all my teachers told me not too, and all my family members did as well. Thankfully, I haven't smoked in my fifteen-years on this planet, and I don't plan on smoking for another hundred years. But, in high school especially, there is a lot of temptation to smoke. However, since I am surrounded by a good group of friends who are totally against that scene, we don't smoke, drink, or do that type of non-Disney stuff.
My group and I hang out a lot, doing movie nights, bonfires, and most of all, photo shoots with a specific theme to them. The day that the first semester of high school ended, this past school year, my group and I did our first photo shoot. The theme was the 50' s. All dressed up in our retro outfits, we walked from my friend's house towards these cool tunnels and grassy area nearby. The walk was strange, people were staring at us like we had just gotten out of a time machine in the wrong era.
Walking to Wendy's first (because eating there is awesome) we had fake cigarettes with us to go along with our costumes. My friend, Anastasia got them from a nearby shop with her family, and thought that today would be a good time to use them! But, before we used them, we all decided that we would not post them on Instagram, Ask. FM, or any similar sites because people would twist the fake cigarettes and make them seem real.
From Wendy's, we walked down the sidewalk to the tunnels which were by a couple of skinny trees by a bunch of houses and a soccer field. Getting everything ready, we all took great photos. They looked professional. I really wanted to post them on Instagram (The struggle...) but the last thing I wanted was for people to think that the biggest Disney Pro of the school was smoking on the side. So, I kept the photos to myself.
After the photo shoot, we all walked back to our friend's house and got picked up. But, of course, pictures find themselves online. And someone in the group posted them on Instagram and Ask. FM... Not their best idea. Now, as you can imagine, people thought they were real, and soon we began receiving questions begging us not to change our images and smoke. It was not the happiest moment of my day.
To make matters worse, someone sent my good friend's mother a picture of her with the fake cigarettes, making it look real. Who sent the picture is a mystery, but I do know that my friend's mom freaked out (as she should), and had to talk to Anastasia's mom to understand that they were fake, and that Anastasia's mom knew for a fact that they were not real.
We finally got all of the photos deleted, and to this day I have them locked up, no one is going to touch them. The moral of the story though is to be careful of what you post online. It can be twisted, photoshopped, and go viral. We were lucky to get this all sorted out and tell people the truth. But some people are not so lucky, and have pictures that were worse. The scary thing about the cyberworld is that once it is out there, anyone can screenshot it, and keep it. Imagine if someone sent a private photo of yours to your boss, or college of your choice. It would be crazy. This is why I am happy to say the least that this was dealt with early on before it got out of hand.
And with that story out of the way, there's nothing left to say besides that this was a day in the life of a Disney Pro.
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