‍fuchsiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa @f0x@pixie.town

It is also absolutely fine if you can't or don't want to describe every image. Blind people on the fedi have made this clear from Day 1. They are not, nor have they ever, demanded that anyone do something impossible or highly unpleasant.

However, as seen upthread, image descriptions are always possible for *someone*. Some (like me) even find it a fun activity that helps polish our writing skills. This is why you should ask for help if you find it hard to describe an image! Self-sufficiency is a harmful myth anyway, you absolutely do not have to do everything for and by yourself.

You can, for instance, use resources like @imagecaptionspls to ask people subscribed to that group for help with captioning. You can also CW undescribed images explaining the image is not described, letting screen reader users know to move on. These are just two of the ways you can deal with captioning difficulties, and none of it involves being an ableist dick about image descriptions.

The argument that image descriptions are impossible/useless because no description can be perfect is a strawman that fundamentally misunderstands the function of image descriptions. The rule of thumb with image descriptions is to give a first-glance impression of the image--not every single detail, not down to the tiniest letter in a gigantic diagram. A perfectionist image description wastes not only the time of the person writing it but also that of the screen reader user who must either skip over all that text or sit through the whole thing if they want to glean any understanding of the image at all.

No one is demanding you devote your life to describing the tiniest detail of every picture; interpreting image description requests and reminders that way and thus an intrusion on your precious freedomz is simply pathetic, turning willful ignorance into an excuse to attack and mock disabled people. Don't be this kind of turd.

As proof that adequate descriptions of even the most complex images are fully possible (which is not the same thing as being easy or feasible for everyone), I will use the very image that was used to argue image descriptions are useless.

Try reading the image description of the attached image. Sighted people can compare it to the original image. Does the description give you an idea of what the image is about? Can you understand the gist of it? For sighted people, is the description comparable to an understanding most sighted people would have at a first glance?

If the answers to these questions is "yes," then it's a useful image description that proves that even complicated and inscrutable images can be described, if only to convey the complicated nature of the image. And I promise you, very few if any sighted people can take in, completely understand, or even read an image like this in its entirety at most display settings.