Changing Profiles and Perceptions

Intention

How would people react to a person suddenly changing their profile picture every hour when they haven't changed the picture in a year?   I personally hope to see shock and related reactions, perhaps comments and questions about the sudden change.  I'm hoping someone asks the question so I can explain why I am suddenly on Facebook when I only visit the site for messaging purposes every odd month or so.  I actually intend to take requests from friends on what picture I post for the profile picture, and see what people recommend and the reactions of those who know me, (and those who do lots of Facebook stalking).  Hopefully doing this will provoke some form of reaction.  

Process

Since I never change my profile picture, I decided that I would change my profile picture on the hour every hour for two days from Saturday to Sunday.  The first picture of the day I deliberately chose to be an actual picture of myself, since I usually don't post any pictures of myself.  I changed all the rest of my pictures to random ones recommended by a few friends.  

Product

As a result I ended up taking a bunch of photos that I took or from the Internet and cropped them to fit the profile picture limit and posted them.  I did not use any effects on the photos to touch them up or compose them.  I figured that candid pictures would have more of an impact.  

Effect

I hoped for a few comments, mostly surprise and probably a lot of people asking me what I was actually doing on Facebook.  I got what I expected sans comments.  Interestingly, the responses were mostly limited to a few likes per post, maybe a single comment.  I found that coworkers and friends I actively talk to were more likely to respond, and I got a few surprising likes from people I haven't talked to in years.  The only comments I got were usually messages asking why I was changing my profile picture every 20 minutes, or asking why I was so active on Facebook. Comments about the pictures were limited to compliments.  I was more likely to garner a reaction from people who recommended pictures than from those who didn't know about the project or did not help in choosing a picture.  Oddly enough I was also more likely to garner a reaction from cute things and references than I did from actual photos of myself, despite the fact that I never post photos of myself. I would have expected more of a reaction from pictures of myself than pictures of fruit.  Still, I did get a lot of surprised reactions, which was what I was aiming for, even if the photos themselves didn't get much reaction beyond a few likes. 

Reflection

I learned a few things about profile pictures and the people I am friends with, at the very least.  I was more likely to get likes and comments after 12 p.m. and before 10 p.m than in the morning or late evening.  I feel that that may be one explanation for why pictures of myself garnered little to no reaction.  Oddly enough fruit garnered a lot of attention, as did cute animals and memes.  I think if I really want a reaction from the people that I friend I will have to post a really weird meme to get a reaction.  Perhaps next time I should try seeing what posting pictures exclusively of myself would do, instead of using mostly images of objects and scenes, or at least keep to a theme, instead of posting whatever picture a random person says.