The “ virtual ” image does not exist, any more than the worlds it is supposed to generate. The orthodoxy – and some“ learned ” voices – are doing their best to smudge the lines between the real, the imaginary and what belongs to visual representation. To what purpose ? Here, high school students, when asked about the notion of the “ virtual ” compare their experience with the creation of digital images with representations they are elaborating and with values circulation in the social imagination. A meditation on what has become a “ passion for ignorance ”.