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I've spoken before about how much I hate the phrase "pics or it didn't happen." My reasons have always been personal: I grew up very poor. I don't have a lot of pictures of my childhood or my teen years. "Pics or it didn't happen" erases my past with a laugh and a smirk.
And yes, I understand that people lie on the internet, people tell tall tales, people embellish. This isn't a new phenomenon. Someone's brother's cousin's girlfriend's best friend has always seen Bigfoot, or caught a giant fish, or been to Mars.
And yes, lies can be harmful. But "pics or it didn't happen" feels a lot more harmful, to me, than "I saw a really big fish today" or "my uncle works for Nintendo."
"Pics or it didn't happen" means that when my stepfather started raping me, since there was no camera on the scene, it wasn't real. Sure, I started attempting suicide at the age of nine, but there were no pics. It didn't HAPPEN.
"Pics or it didn't happen" means that when someone spits racist slurs on the subway, or threatens to break a man's teeth for holding his boyfriend's hand, or bans cameras from the interrogation room, nothing HAPPENED.
"Pics or it didn't happen" is a stepping stone toward "fake news" and "false accusations" and "if he really did that, there'd be PROOF, right?" Only when there are pictures, half the time we find a way not to believe those, either.
Absolutely interrogate the things you hear. Think critically about the claims people make. Ask yourself "if this is a lie, who gains? Who is harmed?" But please stop erasing the parts of the world that aren't caught on film. Too much is invisible.
We can't insist that only the evidence of our eyes is real. We have a lot of senses, and a lot of capacity for thought. We have to use all our tools, not just the one that feels easiest.
