If you are one of those people who takes candid pictures, you’re a jerk. What, you just bought a DSLR that you leave the default settings on anyway and suddenly you’re the paparazzi? Leave your friends alone! They’re just trying to get drunk without wondering whose memory card and hard drive their double chin and debauchery is going to grace in the coming hours.

I think that, given a few untagging sprees, the rest of the world would be in a position to agree.

If you look at it scientifically, I would say 5 in 10 people routinely look good in posed photographs. That’s only half, and they’re actually ready for the picture. For those five seconds, the only thing on their mind was trying to create a moment — a moment that could, at the very least, find itself on someone’s mantle someday. The other half attempted the same task and failed. They blinked. They still haven’t worked out their angles. Their lazy eye is becoming an unintentional focal point. They were drunk. They have an awkward smile. Or maybe they’re just ugly.

Regardless, these are harsh odds that we’re working with. And let’s not dismiss the relevant fact that if you get 5 out of 10 on a test, you do not pass.

When you look at candid photographs, however, the statistics tip even further against us. I would now say that 1 in 100 people routinely look good in candid pictures, and that’s only assuming that either Angelina Jolie is present that evening or that somebody in your social circle knows their way around Photoshop.

On a bigger scale, it’s really an enormous disservice to you and everyone you know to continue snapping pictures of your sister trying to enjoy a sandwich, or of your friend hunched over in a bikini, or of your boyfriend while he’s sleeping. (And, on that last point, it’s kind of nearing the border of Creeptown.)

As humans, we’re already destined to leave behind proof that we’re stupid. But why take it one step further and leave behind proof that we’re not even cute? What do we even have going for us at that point?

Before you take a picture, just ask. At the very least, announce it. And even better, just put your fucking camera away for the night. You can either have a good time now, or you can look at a slide show of everyone else having a good time later, save for the parts where you took it upon yourself to document their every move and make them feel awkward and self-conscious. What’s it going to be?

And don’t even get me started on people who inform you that they’re recording three minutes into the video.