Low quality is the new high quality. You’ve seen them. Those grainy, pixelated, horribly compressed JPEGs that look like they were dragged through a digital gutter before being posted to Reddit or X. We call them very very bad images, but in the weird world of modern internet culture, their "badness" is exactly why they’re winning.
It’s a strange shift. We have 4K cameras in our pockets and AI that can generate hyper-realistic portraits in seconds, yet we are collectively obsessed with visual garbage. Why? Because a crystal-clear image feels like an ad. It feels fake. It feels like it was staged by a corporate marketing team or spat out by a soulless algorithm. But a blurry, deep-fried meme? That feels real. It feels like it was captured by a human in a moment of genuine chaos.
The Aesthetic of Very Very Bad Images
What makes an image truly "bad"? Usually, it's a combination of digital artifacts, terrible lighting, and something called "generation loss." Every time you screenshot a photo and repost it, the file loses a little bit of data. Do that a hundred times, and you get those very very bad images that look like they’re vibrating with green and purple pixels.
There's a term for this in digital art circles: "Deep Fried."
Think about the "Real Business" or "Deep Fried Memes" subreddits. Users intentionally run photos through dozens of filters, cranking up the sharpness and saturation until the original subject is barely recognizable. It shouldn’t work. It should be unwatchable. Instead, it’s hilarious. The distortion becomes the joke.
Kinda weird, right?
We are moving away from the "Instagram Aesthetic" of 2014—where everything was bright, airy, and perfectly framed—into a chaotic era of "Lo-Fi" reality. Hito Steyerl, a filmmaker and visual researcher, actually wrote a famous essay called In Defense of the Poor Image. She argues that these low-resolution files are more democratic. They travel faster. They bypass the gatekeepers of high-end galleries and professional media. When you see very very bad images, you’re seeing the "proletariat" of the digital world. They are the survivors of the internet.
Why Your Brain Prefers the Blur
Sometimes, high definition is actually a distraction.
👉 See also: Twitter Error Code -1: Why Your Feed Is Broken and How to Fix It
Researchers have found that when an image is too perfect, our brains go into "critique mode." We look for the flaws. We wonder if the person's skin was airbrushed or if the lighting was faked. But with very very bad images, the lack of detail forces us to focus on the vibe or the intent.
Take the "Cursed Images" phenomenon. These are photos that are usually low-res, taken with a flash in a dark room, featuring something slightly nonsensical—like a person eating cereal out of a toilet. If that photo were taken on a $5,000 RED camera, it wouldn’t be scary or funny; it would just look like a high-budget student film project. The "bad" quality makes it feel like a found document. It makes you ask, "Who took this, and why were they there?" It triggers a visceral reaction that high-definition photography simply can't touch.
The Technical Side of the Trash
Basically, digital images are made of bits. When you compress a file using the JPEG standard, the software looks for patterns it can simplify to save space. This is "lossy" compression.
- Artifacting: Those weird blocks you see in the shadows of a low-quality video.
- Color Banding: When a sunset looks like a series of distinct stripes instead of a smooth gradient.
- Noise: That grainy "snow" that appears when you try to take a photo in the dark with an old iPhone.
While engineers spend billions trying to eliminate these "bugs," artists and meme-makers are treating them like "features." There is a specific kind of nostalgia attached to the "very very bad images" produced by early 2000s flip phones. It reminds people of a simpler time before everyone was a "content creator."
The Counter-AI Movement
Here is where it gets really interesting for 2026.
AI-generated imagery is everywhere. It’s perfect. The hands (usually) have five fingers now. The lighting is cinematic. The textures are flawless. Because of this, very very bad images have become a "Human-Check."
If I see a photo that is slightly blurry, has a weird shadow, and looks like it was taken by someone who forgot to wipe their lens, I’m 90% sure a human took it. We are starting to associate "bad" quality with "authentic" human experience.
📖 Related: Square Root of 48: Why This Irrational Number Keeps Popping Up in Geometry
It’s almost like the "Glitch Art" movement of the early 2010s, but more widespread. People are intentionally degrading their photos to prove they aren't bots. You've probably seen people on TikTok or Instagram using "vintage" digital cameras from 2005. They want the lag. They want the overexposed flash. They want the very very bad images because perfection is boring. It's predictable.
How to Use "Bad" Imagery Without Ruining Your Brand
Honestly, if you're a business or a creator, you shouldn't just post blurry photos for no reason. There’s a fine line between "artfully low-res" and "I don't know how to use a computer."
- Context is everything. Use lo-fi images for "Behind the Scenes" content. It makes your brand feel approachable and real.
- Contrast helps. If your main feed is polished, a single "bad" image will stand out and get way more engagement because it breaks the pattern.
- Don't fake it too hard. People can tell when a "bad" image has been professionally degraded versus when it's just a raw, messy snapshot. Go for the raw snapshot every time.
We are living in a time where the "uncanny valley" of AI perfection is making us crave the "canny valley" of human error. Very very bad images aren't going away. If anything, they are going to become more valuable as the internet becomes flooded with synthetic perfection.
Embrace the grain. Stop worrying about the pixels. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can share is a photo that looks like it was taken through a screen door during a thunderstorm. It shows you were there.
To start experimenting with this, try turning off the "Auto-Enhance" features on your phone for a week. Take photos without checking the lighting. Capture the messy, blurry, authentic parts of your life. You might find that those very very bad images are the ones you actually end up keeping, because they hold the most memory. Look for the "documentary" feel rather than the "editorial" feel. Start saving the weird, distorted memes that make you laugh and try to analyze why the distortion makes the joke land harder. You’ll see that the "badness" is actually a language of its own.