Created in 2018, the subreddit “Useful Red Circle” features all kinds of content, from hidden optical illusions to ridiculous mistakes in marketing. The moderators restrict “not safe for work” (NSFW) posts that contain nudity, vulgarity, or violence so that its members can safely scroll through the images during working hours, too. It’s the perfect way to waste company time (but do so at your own risk).

If you wish to participate in this subreddit, you have to avoid cluttering the feed with useless circles. However, other useful shapes (like squares and arrows) and colors are allowed as long as their intent is to bring your focus to a part of a video, image, or GIF. The moderators of this community are encouraging an inclusive space and reminding us to be respectful of others, as the usefulness of a red circle might vary from person to person.

The red circle is quite a controversial topic amongst netizens. For some, it helps to point out something hiding in plain sight, while others feel that it’s quite an annoying and useless addition that just states the obvious.

There’s a good explanation for why some of us fail to notice the things that are so clearly visible to others. In psychology, it’s called inattentional blindness, which involves overlooking certain things because your attention is focused on something else like a task, object, or person. Your concentration plays a significant role in visual perception, and when something else detracts from it, it increases the likelihood of you not noticing the most conspicuous things in your environment. For example, when your attention is on the main character of the film, you might not observe the unexpected things entering your visual field. The same goes for images with red circles. You might miss the circled details because you were so attentive to its foregrounded elements.

Additionally, our brains have been known to miss the obvious and create biases against certain visuals they find distracting. For instance, if you’re participating in an experiment where you’re told to find a face among flashing images of houses, your brain will create a sorting mechanism against images of houses so it can spot the face. If afterward you’re asked to do the opposite, chances are you’ll miss the house pictures due to the bias of the previous test.

On the other hand, some people love to point out the apparent. We did this a lot while we were kids, like saying, “Hey, it’s a dog!" after seeing one. Our parents were probably rolling their eyes and thinking, “Yes, yes, it is Captain Obvious."

But stating evident facts helps us connect to each other and ensure we’re on the same page about the situation, as frustrating as sometimes it might be. Mentioning to a friend, “It’s hot outside,” when standing under the scorching sun acknowledges the shared experience, helping us to feel more connected. While getting iced coffee and in air conditioning, we feel heard and validated, which helps to develop trust in relationships.

Some of us tend to avoid sharing insights that we think are clear to individuals because of our fear of facing dissatisfaction (“Duh, Sherlock.”) It’s the element of surprise we’re usually after to appear interesting, which usually disqualifies the known and predictable from our conversations. But steering away from self-evident topics stops us from discovering something unusual about the obvious that was hiding in plain sight. We worry about seeming generic, but a big part of us is mundane and cliché, which allows us to share familiarities with close people.

Additionally, something that is known to you might be a revelation to others. Assuming that everyone knows this piece of information restricts you from wanting to share your insights, detracting from building collective knowledge with those around you. With that in mind, we could all learn something from the subreddit "Useful Red Circle,” which accommodates everyone—the ones who are slower to see the obvious and the ones who think that everything is always too conspicuous.