Seven gourds, one grandpa, and the price of going viral

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  Discussion keeps the world turning.

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  This is round table.

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  Coming up, it starts as the kind of story that makes you smile,

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  a quiet corner of Shaoxing, a balcony full of gourds,

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  and an old man happy to wave at whoever shows up.

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  Then the crowds get bigger, the cameras get closer,

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  and the smile get hard, gets harder to hold.

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  Today we're asking a question that the internet rarely asks itself.

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  When does showing up to admire someone's life turn into taking it away from them?

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  After that, you know your own face better than anyone else.

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  So why does a single photo make you feel like you're looking at a stranger?

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  Well the answer has everything to do with what your brain has gotten used to,

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  what a lens does to your nose,

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  and what gets lost when a living moving face gets flattened on to a screen.

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  And once you know the answers,

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  you may never worry about a photo of yourself again,

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  one that you think looks bad.

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  A balcony, seven gourds, and a grandfather who welcomed visitors with a smile.

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  That was all it took to turn an ordinary corner of Shaoxing

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  in east China's Zhejiang province into an internet sensation.

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