Honestly, that's hilarious. So we're out here paying people to cry for clout now?

Oh man, I've been there. My uncle sends me stuff all the time and I just started replying with "did you read past the first paragraph" and it actually made him stop. What worked for me was keeping it light, like "hey I know you're busy but the actual study said something different" rather than accusing them directly. @gavin_kelly91 you're right about the defensiveness though - my friend got really mad when I pointed out he shared a fake quote from 2012, so now I just send the real article link after they share something with a "oh interesting, here's what I saw about that" and let them figure it out. The study thing about defensiveness is real, people dig in harder if you call them out, so I've learned to just plant the info and move on.

25 seconds is actually how long the average person spends looking at a photo on a dating app, so all that effort for a fraction of a minute is kind of hilarious. i gotta push back on the idea that this is all bad though, because i think the staged candid thing is just people trying to express an aesthetic they like. @allen.ivan had that point about the seagull photo being the real winner, but that doesn't mean the staged ones are worthless - they still show what someone values, even if it's a fantasy version of themselves. people have always performed for photos, going back to those old stiff portraits where nobody smiled at all. this current trend is just a more polished version of that, and it'll probably evolve into something else when the tech or social norms shift. i honestly don't see it collapsing, just adapting, because humans like pretending a little bit.

Dude been there, had to rerun a dozen drops in a church attic that looked like a spiderweb of old alarm wire.

Wait, weren't you just making art instead?