Pics or It Didn't Happen: A False Ultimatum

Did Noah really build an arc?

Let me introduce this topic with a personal story. A few months ago, I used Facebook to post a rather random status. My status was short and sweet:

Just saw the most epic rattail in the history of rattails

Shortly after posting my status, someone replied with:

 pics or it didn't happen

This person had a point. I didn't whip our my camera in time to snap a shot of this magnificent hairstyle which I had just seen. To be fair, the near 12 year old whizzed by me on a bike as I was stepping off a curb. I noticed that this kid had an insanely long braid emanating from the top of his head going down his back, with shorter, normal-length hair around it. This was no average rattail a person would see on the regular. It was epic! And I saw it in a flash and then it was gone. But it left such an impression on me I had to tell the world what I had just seen! But I had no proof of this amazing claim, rendering my words worthless.

According to urbandictionary.com, the meaning of "pics or it didn't happen" is defined as:

A phrase used on Internet forums to counter the vast range of unverifiable claims made by users. Often these claims involve personal brag-worthy accomplishments, extraordinary or rare sights/occurrences, and tales relating to alcohol or drug use.

The phrase "pics or it didn't happen" is primarily a phrase coined as a result of Internet. Yet, the phrase applies in many situations where photography is concerned. For instance, after watching the documentary about the Mexican Suitcase in class recently, we discussed how understanding of the Spanish Civil War would suffer greatly if the photographs had been lost forever. Lost "pics" are as good as no "pics." And if there are no "pics," as this phrase implies, then "it didn't happen."

On one hand, photographs are seen as almost indisputable proof that something happened. Part of the reason the photographs in the Mexican Suitcase are valuable is also because they are the earliest example of war photojournalism in which the photographer is on the front lines capturing the war as it is happening. Because the photos were taken during the action, and not before or after as previous wars have been captured, they are the first war to truly live up to this phrase.

In examining evidence of the Japanese-American internment in the 1940s by the United States government, author Judith Fryer Davidoff compared Farm Security Administration photographs and a government report of the events. Davidoff concluded that "the two narratives seemed to document different events." The photographs contradicted the report and made Davidoff call the report, "a tool for the deliberate manipulation of collective memory." In this case, the photographs disputed what was reported. 

Yet "pics or it didn't happen" is a false ultimatum for two reasons. First, photographs are not objective in the slightest. From the moment of their creation, photographs are manipulated. As Antonin Kratochvil and Michael Perrson explain in their 2001 article on the differences between photojournalism and documentary photography, one shows "an instant shot" while the other shows "interwoven layers of life" (27). They both use the same medium, but are intended to send different messages. The phrase "pics or it didn't happen" implies a naivete which forgets to examine photographs with a critical eye.

Second, "pics or it didn't happen" has broader negative societal implications and presents an ultimatum that favors the victors in the same vein as the phrase, "history is written by the winners." For the losers of history, or those who are persecuted, the first step often taken by their aggressors is to destroy their heritage by destroying any evidence of themselves or their persecution. This includes photographic evidence. Such people include religious or political refugees, victims of genocide, slaves, and the list goes on. The problem lies in the idea that people whose histories are not documented in photographs are presumed to have no history.

Even if photographs do exist of an event, a photograph is not immune to questions of provenance and intended audience as the phrase "pics or it didn't happen" might suggest. The organization or person who created the photo has as much to do with the event happening as the event happening in the photograph does. As Mary Panzer puts it, "the archive governs the meaning of the images inside it" (49). The photograph does not tell the whole story of what is happening in and of itself.

The phrase "pics or it didn't happen," while popular, is not entirely justified. With the implication that events do not "happen" unless they are photographed, this phrase presents a false ultimatum that does not accurately represent the myriad of factors influencing how photos are taken and why they are preserved. In the digital realm and in physical photographic print collections, it is important to be critical of what the presence or absence of "pics" is really saying about what "happened."

References

Davidoff, Judith Fryer. "'The Color of My Skin, the Shape of My Eyes': Photographs of the Japanese-American Internment by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake." Yale Journal of Criticism 9.2 (1996): 233-244.

Kratochvil Antonin, and Michael Perrson. "Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. Photography and the Written Word, Neiman Reports (2001): 27-31.

Panzer, Mary. "Meaning of the Twentieth-Century Press Archive." Aperture 202  (2010): 46-5.