I didn’t see the photograph in question, but I’ve seen a lot like that. Including some from people that I honestly consider friends, and there is a mutual respect even given their 300K+ followers to my, well, not 1/10th that many.
With any given social site there’s a certain amount of lemming behavior going on. I’ve seen it on Fark, I’ve seen it on FB and I’ve seen it on G+. People will give kudos to someone because they’re popular, not necessarily because of what they actually do. I mean, that’s how some ‘tard ends up spending millions of dollars for a marginally interesting picture of the Rhine, right? 90% of the people that +1, or comment on a lot of those things are mostly saying ‘hey, look at me, give me some validation’ while the poster is trying to keep the masses happy – and you have to do that sometimes, just to keep people looking at your stuff
That said, a title, or a few lines can sometimes set a mood to make an image become something greater than it is. I’ll be the first one to admit that a really good title sets a frame for someone else to interpret a photo. My well titled shots almost invariably get more response than something with suck-ass wording. Someone that’s not prepared to fully interpret what they’re seeing for themselves react better to a push in the direction where your head is/was.
