Profile Picture

A profile picture is an image picked by a user to serve as the primary kind of identifying photo or avatar that one shows to the world on their profile across any given social media platform. In many ways, the visual kind of recognition that comes from seeing a profile picture is similar to the static way in which one sees an image of someone's face and knows immediately who that person is, and in a similar way, profile pictures help users know who is talking to them on social media.

Another major issue—that of the content of the image itself—plagues many users of social media. A profile picture can be almost anything, really, inside a certain limit (like a non-nude one) for most platforms, so users have a lot of discretion and, therefore, creative license when it comes to the images they put up to represent themselves.