When I was a very young man, Playboy magazine was a big deal. If you could get your hands on one, it was like discovering gold. You would then squirrel it away and share your good fortune with your buddies as discretely as possible. If someone, like your mother, or blackmailing sister discovered your prize possession, the joke was that you would tell them that you were keeping it for either the articles or one particular article that was in it.
Of course, no one bought that excuse. They knew you had that magazine for one reason only: the pictures. Yes, Playboy magazine is an obvious case, but pictures are a very important form of communication.
How many times have you scanned a group of stories and it was either the photo or an enticing headline that made you pause and read on further? In most cases, the photo is associated with the headline and article directly, but not always. Sometimes, the picture is deliberately deceiving, not a baited hook to lure you into reading more but to specifically imply a self-conscious message through a visual image.
In today’s fast-paced society, many people are skim-readers. The term skim-reading is self-explanatory. It’s when a person quickly looks over information and tries to gather the important facts without reading the entire text. Unfortunately, some people only read the headline and see the associated picture and falsely assume that they know what the rest of the column is about.
A very egregious case of this type of deception recently came from none other than the FBI. On its website, it calls “organized retail theft” a $30 billion-a-year industry. Special Agent Eric Ives goes on to explain that:
…our Violent Crimes/Major Offenders Unit in Washington, D.C.—“specifically focuses on the most significant retail theft cases involving the interstate transportation of stolen property.” Organized retail theft, says Ives, is a “gateway crime that often leads us to major crime rings that use the illicit proceeds to fund other crimes—such as organized crime activities, health care fraud, money laundering, and potentially even terrorism.“
[…]
The organizations responsible for much of this crime include South American theft groups, Mexican criminal groups, Cuban criminal groups from South Florida, and Asian street gangs from California.
That’s true; the FBI is correct. We have all seen videos of gangs invading stores, grabbing as much merchandise as possible, and running out. In most of these cases, the employees have been told not to interfere and to allow the thieves to take what they want. The results of course are devastating, as store after store has been forced to close, unable to absorb the losses caused by the thefts.
So why then would the FBI, knowing who the true perpetrators are, post this on X accompanied with a picture of two WHITE female models?
Higher prices, dangerous products, and closing businesses. These are just some of the impacts Organized Retail Theft has on everyday Americans. Learn what the #FBI does to combat these crimes on the federal level to protect shoppers across the country: https://t.co/f0I2gcN9gu pic.twitter.com/d4fMwRuxry
— FBI (@FBI) February 26, 2024
The backlash was immediate as people voiced their outrage at this deliberate attempt at blatant deception. Instead of using a realistic photograph, the FBI chose to incriminate white females instead of visually telling the truth.
What the FBI was utilizing is known as the picture superiority effect. Scientists believe that the brain can process images approximately 60,000 times more quickly than it processes a similar amount of written information. Some experts suggest that images are more likely to be remembered than words because our brains dually encode images but encode words only once.
What does this mean? It means that when you see an image, it is stored in your memory in the form of a picture but also in the form of a word. However, when you hear or see a word, it’s stored in your memory only in the form of a word.
The picture superiority effect is particularly clear if we look at the corporate world, education, and social media. Think about it, billboards get attention; lengthy articles on notice boards do not. Teachers who use visual aids find that student retention increases. Social media is the perfect place to implement the picture superiority effect because of the way people view posts; those with pictures get more clicks and likes.
This is tragic. The FBI is so woke and gutless that instead of visually posting the truth on social media, they chose to denigrate white people.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and by posting this photo the FBI has proven that point. Sadly, it demonstrates the depth of the bureau’s bigoted ineptitude rather than any trace of principled honesty.