New Brunswick — In an odd technical issue with Facebook, the social media site has been posting “memory” photos depicting supposed Facebook friendships and other photos the site deems memorable going back as far as a 154 years ago, and all involving the bloodiest war in American history.
According to numerous sources, New Brunswick Facebook users have been logging on to the site only to find black-and-white images of people who vaguely resemble them standing next to a musket in a war-torn country and looking grave. The social media site’s gaff has left many in the province confused and questioning their involvement in the century and a half-year-old conflict.
“There’s definitely some pictures on my Facebook page that people took of me when I was pretty drunk and that I don’t remember having happened,” said Fredericton resident Kevin Quinn. “But when I saw that Facebook said I was ‘sharing a memory’ of me and a friend following the Battle of Bull Run, I was fairly certain it wasn’t true. I know for sure now because I looked up that battle on Wikipedia and it said that that happened in 1861 and my mom said for sure that I was born in 1987.”
“The second I saw a picture of someone that Facebook said was me on a battlefield lined with corpses I was pretty sure I wasn’t there,” said Moncton local Jason Gibson regarding a clearly dated photo of what the social media giant claims was a fond memory of him and high school friend Kyle Perkins standing with Tennessee Confederate Civil War unit Tackitt’s Company, Infantry. “The farthest south I’ve ever been was Bangor, Maine as far as I know.”
“It kind of made me depressed,” said Minto man Ryan Smith. “They put up an old image of a letter they said I wrote but it was in cursive and there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I could pull that one off.”
Adding, “I might have been able to write in cursive when I was younger, but I definitely don’t remember ever having a girlfriend named Abigail and why the hell she would care if the buttons on my jacket are holding up? I can’t recall any girl I’ve known thinking that would be important, or when I was stationed with a war-camp just outside Chattanooga.”
In addition to what appear to be false claims of people’s involvement in the American Civil War, many are also calling into question whether Facebook was even widely available during that time.