Meaning
What does Image May Contain: Text mean?
Image may contain: text refers to the captions generated by AI on various images on malfunctioning websites, designed to describe their contents.
Following a mass outage of social media sites, related to Meta Platforms including Facebook and Instagram in July 2019, the captions became a popular meme online.
via MEME
Origin
What's the origin of Image May Contain: Text?
“Image may contain: text” type captions were seen by countless users online on July 3rd, 2019, when the social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp were subjected to a malfunction.
The malfunction resulted in unloaded images, with various AI generated descriptions of their contents.
Spread & Usage
How did Image May Contain: Text spread?
The same day, a plethora of users started making posts on Facebook as well as Twitter, mimicking the style of “Image may contain: text” creating a new trend, making fun of the situation.