I find this very weird.

On one hand you got text, which is very accessible and very efficient and easy to translate for non-native speakers.

On the other, you got photos of text which is inefficient, hard to translate and not easy to read compared to just text.

So what gives? Why do people use photos of text instead of text?

You can watermark photos, you cant watermark text. They want their name to make the rounds.

It's usually a screenshot of some other platform, like Twitter, or Instagram, which is much easier than copying and pasting and then explaining that it was found somewhere else. No one is going to take the time to transcript a screenshot. An image of text also implies that it's not OP speaking, which is sometimes used to avoid being responsible for what is said. Also, more people will read an image of text than text.

That last bit is both surprising but also makes total sense.