An Australian man decided he would join the era of selfies on May 6, taking a selfie with a Darth Vader sign in a local Target store. However, his innocent Star Wars selfie quickly earned him the label of a “creep” by a mother who was shopping at the same store.
The mother believed that the man was taking pictures of her children and snapped a photo of him as he made his way out of the grocery store. She later posted it to Facebook where she proceeded to publicly shame him.
“OK people, take a look at this creep!” she wrote alongside the photo, according to the Daily Mail .
“Today at Knox he approached my children when they were sitting at the frozen movie in the children’s clothing section, he said ‘hey kids’ they looked up and he took a photo, then he said I’m sending this to a 16 yr old,” the post continued. “I immediately removed the kids from that area and took them to security at the front so I then followed them and took his picture and he took off. Centre management were straight onto and so are the police, hopefully he is caught. Police said if he is a registered sex offender he will be charged, this happened at Knox, be careful with your kids.”
Mum says sorry for Facebook shaming a man as a ‘creep’ when he was only taking a Star Wars selfie http://t.co/gxXmE6tA3I
— Daily Mail Australia (@DailyMailAU) May 11, 2015
In all reality, the father of three, who spoke to the publication with the condition of anonymity, was really only taking a picture with the Darth Vader “May the 4th Be With You” sign to send to his own children.
“I’m a father of three kids and a normal human being… I’ve never taken a selfie before,” he said.
“As I was walking out of Target I saw a very large Darth Vader cut out for taking photographs – it said ‘May the 4th be with you’ – and I’ve got three children and they love all that Comic-Con, Supernova, science fiction stuff,” he explained. “I said “I’ll only be a second, I’m taking a selfie to send to my kids.”
“I was in two minds whether to take the selfie, but I thought it’ll be a good daggy dad joke,” he added. “In real terms it was embarrassing enough to be standing in front of Darth Vader to be honest.”
As the Inquisitr previously reported , after the mother’s post had been shared 20,000 times, the man admits that he was considering his legal options, noting that he had even received death threats.
“We’re a very strong, community-minded family and we’ve never had any issue with any form of impropriety and all of a sudden my name is smeared,” he said. “I would like people to understand the perils of social media, especially unreliable and uncorroborated information.”
[Image via Facebook/Daily Mail]
