Believing illusions is much older than photography. People went to plays and laughed and wept before anyone ever thought of how to capture it for replayabiliy. It seems to be an inbuilt function of human compassion or sympathy.

Taking a step back, one can also realise even the ‘real’ events are illusion. The Case Against Reality is a reminder the human mind doesn’t have privileged view of reality, and never did. Existence monism, or the oneness of being, erases the lines we draw to make maps of reality. It’s all just sensory data. …But, that’s a deeper rabbit hole than I feel like diving into just now.