See if you can follow this…
Shea's cousin posted a comment on a photo that someone he knows uploaded to Facebook.
Shea was able to view this photo and the comments that had been made about it even though she is not Facebook friends with the person that originally posted the photo. (This is a glaring Facebook security weakness that I've seen before – someone you know posts a comment on a photo uploaded by someone you don't, it shows up in your News Feed and all of a sudden, you're clicking through some stranger's photos of their vacation to Aruba!)
The photo was of two girls in the 80's drinking “pic-a-pop” and Shea's cousin's comment was “Whatever happened to pic-a-pop?” (which is why Shea clicked on the photo in the first place – pic-a-pop was a popular soft drink in the 1980's that's recently made a reappearance in local convenience stores and she wanted to see what they were talking about.)
The original uploader of the photo responded to Shea's cousin's comment to say that you could still buy Pic-a-pop in Regina and by the way, whatever happened to the other girl, giving her name.
This is where it gets really weird. The other girl's name was really familiar to Shea and after she got me to look at the photo, I was able to confirm that the other “missing” girl was one of my best friends in high school (and in fact, was even kind enough to be my “date” to the prom although it was a “just friends” thing as my lack of studliness in my younger days is a well-established fact on this blog. In fact, that last link is to a photo. Of me. Getting a computer cake. On my 21st birthday. Yikes! The girl in question is actually in the bottom right of the linked photo as well.)
Even weirder is the fact that Shea has (different) cousins on her dad's side that are related to the girl in the photo on her dad's side. So, even though you may be hearing banjo music in your head, this is a fairly common occurence in Saskatchewan (someone actually did a study based on the “six degrees of separation” idea which found that everyone from Saskatchewan is connected to everyone else in Saskatchewan by only one degree of separation.)
In summary:
– Facebook isn't as secure as you think.
– Saskatchewan is a *very* small province.
– The girl I went to prom with had even higher hair when she was 13 then when she was 18. 
Talk about your digital footprints!
Comments 5