Why do people do this? I am at a loss to understand.

Surely moments of private personal intimacy should be kept private and not put up for public consumption for hard-boiled PR purposes?

Mark Abela protests too much.

But really – why on earth would anybody want to use their husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, minor children for self-branding purposes and image-building?

When you use the very relationships of which you should be most protective and private to brand yourself and create the image you want, people just begin to wonder. And the first thing they wonder is whether you ever grew up.

Back in the day, you would only ever show pictures like these to your family and best friends (if at all). Now we have to show them to everyone, and use them as we do logos on handbags and shirts.