“The Literary Style of Alt-Text”
For years, I didn’t add alt-text to my online images
But I’ve started doing it all the time now — being on Mastodon is what showed me how important it is!
Along the way, I’ve started noticing …
…. what an oddly *literary* activity it is
Here’s an image I wrote alt-text for when I blogged a few weeks ago, below
My essay on alt-texting: https://clivethompson.medium.com/the-literary-style-of-alt-text-9f1595cd8f0c
A free “friend” link in case you don’t subscribe to Medium: https://clivethompson.medium.com/the-literary-style-of-alt-text-9f1595cd8f0c?sk=1d9cd685997cb08d8909da687a2d03cf
@clive i also really enjoy reading everyones alt text—either as a complement for the image, or clarification of what the author meant by it when i’m confused, or as a full on replacement when my internet is slow
if you’re interested in analyzing alt text as literature you might also be interested in: https://alt-text-as-poetry.net/blog/ ? They have a bunch of interesting examples of alt text, along w/the authors own analysis of each
@Satsuma
That site is great, one of my Internet friends mentioned it in a comment on the Medium post – it’s so cool!