Mom Creates Birthday Snapchat Filter For Her Teen, Embarrassment Ensues

ByPriscilla Blossom

(Twitter / Jenna Fluegman)

It’s tough being a parent to a teenager these days. Our kids are hyper-glued to their devices and hyper-connected to their friends and their online lives. It often makes it difficult to get their attention and connect. But sometimes, moms great creative. Take this one mom who discovered a new way to celebrate (and simultaneously embarrass) her daughter via Snapchat.

Jenna Fluegman’s mother thought she was making a sweet gesture by creating a custom geofilter for her teen’s birthday. The Ohio-based mom created a filter that reads “Jenna’s 17th Birthday” along with the date, and tagged it to Jenna’s school. This means that every student (and teacher) at her school using Snapchat that day would be able to see it. All they would have to do is enable the location-based filter and it would pop up. But…was it a good idea?

Think about it for a minute. On the one hand, it was really sweet of her mom. She was basically trying to surprise her daughter in a special way. I can get on board with this. On the other hand, it seems like it could be the 2017 equivalent of your mom showing up to your high school classroom with a box of cupcakes and some balloons. Totally cute when you’re 5, but once you turn 17? Not so much.

Jenna tweeted her interaction with her mom, which basically went exactly how you might imagine such a conversation to go with a slightly embarrassed teen girl:

It’s totally understandable. Jenna probably thought it was sweet, and her friends probably did, too. But getting attention from the entire school (including kids she doesn’t know and maybe even ones she doesn’t get along with) probably wasn’t the most fun. More than that, the internet had a field day with Jenna’s reaction to the impromptu “gift” and some of it was just uncalled for.

Jenna’s response to the criticism was spot on:

Jenna is a teen girl, and she’s entitled to feel however she needs to about the situation. She didn’t berate her mother or anything, and she wasn’t ungrateful. Mostly, it seems the teen was a bit surprised at the whole thing. The internet (especially those who are over the age of 18) really need to check themselves before they start slamming a teenager on her personal space.

At the end of the day, it was no big deal, and it’s likely mom and daughter have already had a good laugh about the whole thing.

Let this be a lesson, parents. If you’re going to make a custom geofilter for your kid, maybe make one that’s only for your household and not for the rest of the world to see.

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