Stock Photography

About

Stock Photos are photographs created specifically for the purpose of commercial licensing. Because of the need to create photos that will suit a wide variety of situations, photographers and agencies creating stock photos often include images that play off of cultural stereotypes and cliches. Stock Photos are known for their crude illustrations of everyday life and numerous instances where they illustrate very unusual situations.

History

Stock photography dates back to the mid-1880s, when the half-tone printing press was invented for use by newspapers to reproduce photographs. When an event could not be photographed or the photographs could not be transmitted fast enough for the newspaper, the stock photos were made to recreate the event.

In 1920 a company called RobertStock was founded, which was the first major stock photography vendor. The popularity of stock photography grew in the 1980s when stock photographs were first made available via widely distributed photobooks, such as “Sell & Resell Your Photos.” The first Internet stock photography vendor was iStock, founded in 2000. Notable stock photography sellers include Getty Images,^[1] Shutterstock^[2] and iStock.^[3]

Online Presence

Stock photos are often mocked online for their surreal or unrealistic portrayals of everyday life. Stock Photos are commonly captioned, edited or used as reaction images on sites like 4chan, Reddit or Tumblr.

Stock Photos grew in online popularity when the Awkward Stock Photossingle topic blog was created on Tumblr, featuring various odd or out-of-context stock photos. The blog’s content was quickly taken down by a cease-and-desist order from iStockphoto (shown below), although the blog continued later on. The blog and the DMCA takedown was covered by various news media websites like TechDirt or Buzzfeed, increasing the blog’s popularity. The concept of the blog inspired other single topic blogs on Tumblr, such as WTF Stock Photos^[7] and Overly Specific Stock Photos.^[8]^[9]

On January 31st 2012, the r/stockphotos subreddit was created, but was replaced by r/wtfstockphotos a day later.^[4]^[5] Both subreddits were made to share stock photos that users found funny, awkward or bizarre. As of April 2015, the subreddit has over 19,000 readers. On October 31st 2013, the r/youdontsurf was created, where users took stock photos and captioned them. ^[6] As of April 2015, the subreddit has over 165,000 readers.

Related Memes

Captioned Stock Photos

Captioned Stock Photos are a series of stock photos with captions depicting vulgar dialogue between the models in the photograph, often using the Comic Sans font. These types of images are often shared on the r/youdontsurf subreddit and Tumblr.

Stock Photo Clichés

Stock Photo Clichés are a variety of themes commonly used in stock photography, such as people looking at their food while laughing or old people using computers.

PornHub Comments On Stock Photos

PornHub Comments On Stock Photos (NSFW) is a series of stock photos of people using laptops captioned with various comments found on the adult video website PornHub, originating from the single topic blog of the same name.

Hide The Pain Harold

Hide The Pain Harold is the nickname given to a senior stock photography model, whose facial expression appears to show discomfort. Photographs including the model are commonly used as reaction images and are often edited on the r/youdontsurf subreddit.

Identifying Wood

Identifying Wood is a book written by R. Bruce Hoadley. The book’s cover shows a middle-aged man examining the texture of a slab of wood with a microscope. This image has spawned many edits which manipulate either the book’s title, the slab of wood or the man studying it. The first edits were uploaded to the website FARK upon request on a thread titled “Photoshop this guy and his wood”.

Stocking

Stocking is a photo fad where people take pictures of themselves imitating various stock photos, and post them with the photo they were imitating for comparison.

I Bet The Jews Did This

I Bet The Jews Did This is an ironic catchphrase used to mock anti-semitic conspiracy theorists and trolls who blame the people of Jewish descent for their own personal woes and misfortunes. The original image macro (pictured below) is based on a stock photograph of an angry looking man holding tangled Christmas lights.