Dad takes his first ever selfie, ends up getting accused of paedophilia online

Hang in there, dad

(Facebook)

A dad's first foray into smartphone photography ended up being a trial by fire last week, when a nearby mother thought he was taking photos of her children and wrote a Facebook post about him that went viral.

The man was at a cinema in Melbourne on May the 4th (Star Wars Day) when he spotted a life-size Darth Vader and decided to take a selfie with it as a lame dad joke for his son.

Unbeknownst to him, the incident was being hopelessly misconstrued and widely shared on Facebook:

The man eventually realised what had happened after his phone started going off constantly during a meeting.

"I'm a father of three kids and a normal human being," he later told Daily Mail Australia.

"I've never taken a selfie before. I was in two minds whether to take the selfie, but I thought it’ll be a good daggy (Australian slang for lame) dad joke. In real terms it was embarrassing enough to be standing in front of Darth Vader to be honest."

The man received death threats during the window in which he was believed to be a paedophile, and, the internet being the internet, the woman who accused him is now herself the subject of death threats.