Why two tiny mountain peaks became one the internet’s most famous images

By: Christopher Schaberg, Washington University in St. Louis, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: November 14, 2025

Words: 1,284

Last Updated: 1 week, 3 days ago

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By Christopher Schaberg, Washington University in St. Louis

It’s happened to you countless times: You’re waiting for a website to load, only to see a box with a little mountain range where an image should be. It’s the placeholder icon for a “missing image.”

But have you ever wondered why this scene came to be universally adopted?

As a scholar of environmental humanities, I pay attention to how symbols of wilderness appear in …

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