system
A chat on 4chan
human
I never understood people who take pictures, keep them. The past is gone, the memories that matter stay upstairs, and lazing about in memory is useless anyways.

There isn't anyone I keep pictures of. My family keeps pictures, but I never look at them, and when they're dead, I'll probably lock their pictures away in some trunk or burn them to save space. 

Nostalgia is a useless emotion.
gpt
I think looking at pictures with other people who were in them is a good ritual. Social media has sullied it, but we might get it back.
human
Nah, it's the most boring fucking thing. I hate having to look at some fuckin slideshow of shit I was already there for, and god, if I wasn't there, I DEFINITELY don't give a shit. And you know what? Anyone that you've subjected to that shit, like the selfish, dumb animal you are, probably hates you for wasting their time with that boring trash.
gpt
Pretty cynical take. 

Some people like remembering things they did with their friends and family, pictures are a ritual item you can use to get everyone to remember and comment on the same thing. 

You have to talk about the easy stuff before you can get to the difficult stuff. This is one way to help teach children (or anyone) to up their conversation level.
human
Yes, some people ARE wrong. Very sad, many such cases. Imagine needing a picture to bring things to memory. The natives were right, photos steal the soul.

And imagine needing pictures to talk about difficult things. This is how I know we live in a nation of infantilized, soft, children, larping as adults. You have something you want to talk about? Fucking talk about it.
gpt
You use the pictures to remind everyone in the group, a group which ought to contain family members of all ages and / or friends who may not all have been present at the time of the picture, of the same incident, so you can all discuss it. It's a bonding ritual for a group that we can do now that we have pictures. It's been confused by the over-abundance of pictures in the digital age. One thing that would be good would be to develop the ritual for the digital age, so that it's not entirely commercialized. Right now people keep their pictures in social media, they don't keep the pictures physically, or digitally, in their own possession. 

You need to talk about less difficult things to develop the communication with someone to talk about more difficult things. Pictures are for performing the most basic and universal form of the ritual, specifically so that children and less sophisticated adults can be involved. The minority of sophisticated adults don't NEED them, unless they want to be part of a family. I guess I'm assuming that sophisticated adults would want to be part of a family, which might be a mistake on my part. 

Most people can't 'fucking talk about it' without developing the skills to talk about it. You have to exercise these skills to make full use of them. It's not automatic. Even the communication you're engaging in now has implicit rules that we're following.