Four Facebook photo notices arrived within a few hours.
The album was called “Playing Catch-up.” Somebody had added tags, and Facebook sent one email for each of them.
Facebook sent each notice to my regular email address with a link back to the album.
It was one email per tag, not one summary for the album. Four tags meant four nearly identical messages competing for attention within the same afternoon.
The notification did not include the full photo. It gave me the album title and a link. The place, the people beside me, and the moment itself were waiting on Facebook.
Four notices in a few hours show that the tags were added in one short run. Each notice used the same album title.
The pictures did not need to come from my camera or live on my website. Somebody else could add an album and attach my name to the pictures through tags.
My inbox around the same time was crowded with Beatport systems work, old consulting requests, game tickets, and domain notices. The Facebook messages came from the ordinary part of life around that work.
The album title was the only description shared by all four notices. There was no location, event name, or useful caption in the email itself.
The album title was the best detail inside the email.
Playing Catch-up. Four photos. Four tags. Four emails in one afternoon.
The pictures were on Facebook. The four notifications remained in Gmail with the same invitation to view them.