UNCOVERED: Useless unsuccessful unpopular screenshots | History Defined

The Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Screenshots group is part of the UUU Universe, which encompasses a host of groups including UUU Ginko Trees, UUU Reruns, UUU Facts, UUU Philosophy, UUU Movies, UUU Memes, UUU Grocery Store, UUU Almost Dead Plants, and more. But today we’re focusing on the screenshots, so let me give you a little background information of this massive community. The group was launched on February 11, 2017 and is for posting all of “your ridiculous screenshots that don't fit into any other groups.” There aren’t too many rules, aside from the general UUU tenets and that members must only post screenshots they’ve taken themselves.

No punching down or edgelord “humor” is tolerated in the group, and members are told to resist the urge to engage in “pointless online discourse”. “Seriously, why do you care so much? Take a deep breath. Get off Facebook for a bit. Maybe go outside if you can and look up at the sky. Read a book. Google ‘eel reproduction’. Find five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste,” the admin rules state.

And although the group has been around for 5 years already, it continues to thrive. At the time I’m writing this, the group has already seen 107 new posts today and gained over 300 new members in the last week. So clearly, there is a huge audience for UUU screenshots. You never know exactly what you’re going to get when you take a scroll through this group. Will you find screenshots of bizarre items being listed on Facebook Marketplace and eBay? Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll feast your eyes on extremely cringey content from social media or texting conversations that make you lose all faith in humanity? Regardless of what you find, you know it’ll qualify for at least one of the U’s.

Part of the fun of this group is participating in the sharing as well. We all have smartphones or computers if we’re using Facebook, so chances are, we all come across something bizarre that’s worth screenshotting every now and then. Whether it’s a terribly photoshopped ad, a hilarious post on another social media site, or a strange item being sold on Amazon, the possibilities for screenshot hilarity are endless. In fact, you probably have some photos that you could share on UUU screenshots just sitting in your camera roll right now, waiting for you to recognize their potential.  

According to Riccardo Coluccini at Vice News, the first smartphone to introduce the capability to screenshot was the beloved iPhone, in 2007, but the history of the screenshot itself actually goes back much further. In 1959, “The very first photo of a screen featured the image of a pin-up model, drawn by a computer programmer for fun on a 213 million euro Cathode-ray tube screen,” Coluccini writes. “The screen, which was owned by the American military (and usually used for detecting nuclear threats), was photographed using a polaroid camera, resulting in a rudimentary – and very expensive – first example of computer art, and the world's first-known screenshot.”

Fast forward a few decades, and finally, in the 1990s, the “print screen” command became standard on computers. The general public was suddenly able to screenshot to their heart’s desire, as long as they owned a PC or had access to one. Today, however, screenshots are used for a variety of reasons, including to convey information and to hold private conversations unbeknownst to the individuals whose messages have been screenshotted. Screenshots can also be nefarious, as many Snapchat users unfortunately came to learn after sending NSFW photos. But for the most part, screenshots are, or should be, used just for fun.

As Coluccini writes for Vice, “Screenshots have become the faceless selfie, and a way to share what happens when we're alone on the internet. And while they're still important for archival reasons (like in the prolific work of the Internet Archive), they've evolved as vitally important evidence or ‘receipts’ of behavior people might have wanted to forget.”

While screenshots can be used for many purposes, I personally love to use them for sentimental reasons. When a friend or family member sends a particularly sweet or hilarious message, I love to screenshot it and keep it in an album on my phone for use in the future. When I’m in need of a kind word or I find myself missing them, I just look back on my screenshot archive, and I start smiling. If I see something on social media I’d like to share with a friend who doesn’t use that platform, I can simply screenshot it and pass it along. We all know that screenshots can be used for good or evil, but I have to say, using them for good just feels so right.  

Screenshots, in general, are not useless, as we’re able to use them for a variety of practical purposes. At work, you might need to send a quick message to a colleague with a screenshot of a part of a document you’re discussing. Your landlord might try to change the terms of something you’ve previously agreed upon, but by sending a quick screenshot of your prior conversation, you can clear up any confusion. But there’s a big difference between keeping a screenshot between you and whomever you’ve had a conversation with and posting screenshots of private conversations online. That’s where screenshots can enter some ethical gray area.

Victoria Angelova wrote a piece last year for API Layer discussing how ethical screenshots are, and she mentions some of the times where it might be questionable to take screenshots. “First, if you are taking a screenshot of someone else’s work (e.g., a website or document), you should make sure you have their permission before doing so,” she writes. “Otherwise, you may be violating their copyright. Second, if you take a screenshot of confidential or sensitive information (e.g., a medical record), you should ensure you have the proper authorization to do so. Otherwise, you may be violating patient privacy laws.”

“Just because you can easily take screenshots doesn’t mean that you should,” Victoria goes on to write. “More and more technologies are implementing methods to either block screenshots or alert other users when screenshots are taken. There could be many reasons someone would want to be alerted if you take a screenshot. For example, if you are taking a screenshot of a confidential document, the other person may want to know so they can take measures to protect the information. Or, if you are taking a screenshot of a conversation, the other person may want to know so they can continue the conversation offline.” So let’s keep our screenshotting harmless and useless, mainly for purposes of documentation, to help us remember things and to have something silly to post on UUU Screenshots.

These screenshots might have been deemed useless, unsuccessful and/or unpopular by the people who shared them in this group, but at least they’re able to serve a purpose here: entertaining us pandas! We hope you’re enjoying this list, and please, remember to keep upvoting all of your favorite useless screenshots. Let us know in the comments down below what feelings these bizarre pics are bringing up in you, and then if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article featuring a page from the Useless, Unsuccessful and/or Unpopular Universe, look no further than right here!