Pic related (from “pic related,” “picture related”) is an image inserted into a text that has an indirect relation to the meaning.
Pic-related images are the cancerous tumor of the internet and a sign of the text author’s lack of professionalism.
Pic-related images appeared when the internet got shitted up with shit and the shit had to fight for its place in the sun among the rest of the shit. In this case, pic-related images are used merely as a tool for attracting the attention of the spoiled reader.
Another reason pic-related images appeared is bad website design. The designer, skipping along the road paved with good intentions, inserted a spot for an illustration into the site layout. After all, it’s obvious that any text is perceived better if it is sensibly illustrated. On the other hand, the site editor needs to stick something into the gaping hole. If the editor has no illustrations for the piece, he takes the first pic-related image he finds on the first page of Google.
Using pic-related images is bad form. Nevertheless, they are often used not only in personal or group blogs, but also in news services, the overwhelming majority of which have no staff or freelance photojournalists of their own.
A situation arises in which some report may be illustrated with a photograph that has an indirect relation to the event being described. Usually, such mistakes are very easy to spot: the weather was clear at the moment of the event, while the photograph is overcast. Or buildings are visible in the background that do not exist in the city where the described events are taking place.
Here pic-related images do the news site a disservice, because by refuting the illustration’s direct relation to the event, the report as a whole is also called into question or refuted, which of course is not logical, but an unpleasant aftertaste may remain for the reader. Such photographs are often inserted deliberately for propaganda purposes. Western news agencies are the permanent Olympic champions in this sport.
The author or editor of a report must make the effort to select or create illustrations that have a direct relation to the content. If there are no such illustrations, then absolutely nothing else may be included in the text. A good text will be read by its reader in any case. And this note is proof of that.