Spending so much time on the Internet, there are certain phenomena I am most certainly aware on an unconscious level, but don’t seem to really register until someone points them out. Such is the case of the #shitpic, the subject of Brian Feldman’s great essay The Triumphant Rise of the Shitpic, which, unlike other -pics, I was relieved to find is a purely metaphoric descriptior of very lo-fi images, tipically of memes, that are usually produced when mobile users take screen captures or photograph screens in order to circunvent the lack of re-sharing or download functions in apps such as Instagram. Doing so adds layers of recompression and degradation that mimic analog properties and ‘age’ a meme as it spreads, up to the point the shittiest pic correlates with the funniest (or at least the most viral) meme.
Nick Douglas has a few more links and comments on the subject, including his contribution to a Journal of Visual Culture issue dedicated to memes, which is refreshingly free to read.
Going in the absolutely opposite direction (#tastypics?), I found these demos of the BPG image format absolutely jawdropping, and I hope BPGs start to replace JPEGs, like, yesterday. However, since BPG images are, very basically, still HEVC frames, I sincerely hope software patents won’t muck everything up and ensure JPEG reign well into the 2030s, allowing generations upon generations of #shitpics to overrun the Internet.
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