I figured it out! (I feel dumb)
My objective was to save space in my file. I wanted to show the same picture in multiple different sheets (referencing the same image) instead of excel "charging me space" for the same picture.
If I just click the pic and copy / paste the pic, excel actually references that original pic image that was inserted. So I can copy / paste 100 times without excel's file size going up 100 times. I can do whatever I want to the copied pic (thumbnails, links, etc).