this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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Microblog Memes
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A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
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- Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
- You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
- Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
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Yeah, and I noticed it didn't describe the image at all - unless one had already seen the image and knew what it was. So for visually impaired users (i.e. one of the main groups who would benefit from alt text) it is insufficient at best.
Specific to the OP the issue is those of us who know gen-AI is an enormous piece of shit with only downsides for things we care about like culture and learning, we might feel like we're going a little crazy in a culture that only seems to be able to share love for it in public places like work. Even public criticism of it has been limited to economic and ecological harms. I haven't seen that particular angle before very much, and as someone else posted here I felt recognized by it.
How would you state it over the phone? Alt text is a succinct alternative that conveys (accurate/equivalent) meaning in context, much like reading a comment with an image to someone over the phone. If you would have said that "Simpsons meme of an old man yelling at a cloud", then that would also suffice. It doesn't need to go into elaborate detail.
In those discussions, people often talk about having enough, losing their minds, it making people dumber, too. I get it helps to feel recognized, so would it feel better to broaden the reach of that message for more recognition?
"A screenshot of The Simpsons showing a hand holding a newspaper article featuring a picture of Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist at the sky and scowling, with the headline 'Old Man Yells At Clouds'"
It depends on how much you care that someone who needs or wants the alt text needs to know.
absolutely. And, ironically, one of the possible use cases of AI where it might-sort-of-kinda-work-okay-to-help-although-it-needs-work-because-it's-still-kind-of-sucky.
The accessibility advocates at WebAIM in the previous link don't seem to think a verbal depiction (which an algorithm could do) is adequate. They emphasize what an algorithm does poorly: convey meaning in context.
Their 1^st^ example indicates less is better: they don't dive into incidental details of the astronaut's dress, props, hand placement, but merely give her title & name.
They recommend
and calling it a screenshot is non-essential to context. The hand holding a newspaper isn't meaningful in context, either. The headline already states the content of the picture, redundancy is discouraged, and unless context refers the picture (it doesn't), it's also non-essential to context.
Unless gen-AI mindreads authors, I expect it will have greater difficulty delivering meaning in context than verbal depictions.
Geez for someone who ostensibly wants people to use alt text you’re super picky about it.
Good luck?
If you want to fuss about common industry guidelines, then take it up with them. It's even in standard guidelines: