Sad Guys On Trading Floors

2008Single-topic blog / captioned photo collectionclassic

Also known as: SGOTF

Sad Guys On Trading Floors is a 2008 Tumblr blog that pairs darkly comedic captions with news photographs of panicked stock traders on exchange floors.

Sad Guys on Trading Floors is a single-topic Tumblr blog that collects news photographs of distressed stock traders and brokers on exchange floors, pairing them with darkly funny captions. Created on October 7, 2008, during the worst week in Dow Jones history, the site turned real financial misery into an early internet meme by treating panicked Wall Street professionals like captioned animals. It drew coverage from TIME, The New York Times, and Mashable, earned a 2009 Webby Award nomination, and resurfaced whenever markets tanked.

wall street memesfinance memestumblr memessingle serving site memeslate 2000s memes

Overview

Sad Guys on Trading Floors is a Tumblr blog that posts wire-service photographs of traders looking miserable on exchange floors. The images typically show men in rolled-up sleeves and loosened ties clutching their heads, staring at screens in disbelief, or doing full facepalms9. Each photo gets a short, snarky caption underneath, turning stock-market despair into comedy. The blog's own tagline put it plainly: "Turning the economic crisis into one of those clever Internet memes"1.

The format owes a clear debt to LOLcats and the broader captioned-image culture of the late 2000s. TIME called it "the white collar equivalent of Lolcats," and Mashable declared the desperate brokers "the New Lolcats"3. The humor works on multiple levels: the traders' exaggerated agony, the photographers lurking to capture that perfect grimace, and the absurdity of someone collecting it all into a blog2.

Chris Riebschlager, a Kansas City-based interactive art director, and Jess Hemerly, a San Francisco-based blogger, launched the Sad Guys on Trading Floors blog on Tumblr on October 7, 20086. That timing was no accident. The site went live during the week that saw the largest single-week percentage drop in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, worse than any week during the Great Depression6. The subprime mortgage crisis had been building since 2007, Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy three weeks earlier, and global markets were in freefall11.

The very first post featured a dismayed-looking Asian daytrader mid-facepalm6. On launch day, BoingBoing picked it up6. The next day, October 8, posts appeared on eBaum's World, MetaFilter, and Aussie Stock Forums8. That same day, a similar Tumblr blog called "Brokers With Hands on Their Faces" launched independently, created by Matthew R. Robison2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tumblr
Key People
Chris Riebschlager, Jess Hemerly
Date
2008

Chris Riebschlager, a Kansas City-based interactive art director, and Jess Hemerly, a San Francisco-based blogger, launched the Sad Guys on Trading Floors blog on Tumblr on October 7, 2008. That timing was no accident. The site went live during the week that saw the largest single-week percentage drop in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, worse than any week during the Great Depression. The subprime mortgage crisis had been building since 2007, Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy three weeks earlier, and global markets were in freefall.

The very first post featured a dismayed-looking Asian daytrader mid-facepalm. On launch day, BoingBoing picked it up. The next day, October 8, posts appeared on eBaum's World, MetaFilter, and Aussie Stock Forums. That same day, a similar Tumblr blog called "Brokers With Hands on Their Faces" launched independently, created by Matthew R. Robison.

How It Spread

The blog gained traction fast as the global financial crisis deepened throughout October 2008. The New York Times' Economix blog featured it on October 8, and The Next Web wrote it up the same day, calling it "a reminder of our present times". Business Insider called it the "Best Tumblr + Economic Meltdown Mashup". Later that month, TIME profiled the site, praising the witty captions that elevated it beyond a simple photo gallery. Mashable's coverage framed the blog as a barometer: "once this site starts running out of depressed brokers, it's a sure sign that the economy is healthy again".

In 2009, Sad Guys on Trading Floors earned a Webby Award nomination in the Weird category.

The blog went quiet as markets recovered, but it came roaring back in August 2011 when the Dow Jones dropped more than 600 points following the downgrade of the U.S. government's credit rating. The Atlantic noted the meme had jumped from niche Tumblr culture to the mainstream, with The New York Times itself using sad-broker photo carousels as homepage visual elements. Uproxx highlighted the blog's return that same month.

The Atlantic's coverage included a key insight from Robison, creator of the sister blog Brokers With Hands on Their Faces: "With these photos there are a number of layers to laugh at — the poor broker, the photographer waiting to take that perfect photo of the poor broker, the media who love to run with these photos. And then there's me, this guy who collected them and made a blog, which is totally ridiculous as well".

LA Observed noted a recurring visual quirk across both blogs: the traders pictured were almost always "paunchy guys with their sleeves rolled up and ties askew," until the Financial Times finally ran a photo of a woman trader in dismay after a big market loss in September 2011.

How to Use This Meme

The Sad Guys on Trading Floors format is straightforward:

1

Find a wire-service or news photograph of a trader or broker looking distressed on an exchange floor. The more dramatic the body language (head in hands, mouth agape, thousand-yard stare), the better.

2

Add a short, funny caption that either narrates the trader's inner monologue or gives them a silly nickname. Common approaches include naming them ("Guy With Face On Phone," "Guy Who Doesn't Understand Why This Keeps Happening to Him") or writing a brief joke about their misery.

3

Post during a market downturn for maximum relevance. The format works best when real financial panic is in the news.

Cultural Impact

Sad Guys on Trading Floors was one of the first single-topic Tumblr blogs to break into mainstream media coverage during the 2008 financial crisis. It landed write-ups in TIME, The New York Times, Mashable, Business Insider, The Next Web, and Gawker within its first month. The Webby Award nomination in 2009 confirmed its place in early internet culture.

The blog also helped establish a broader pattern: whenever markets crash, galleries of anguished trader photos flood news sites. By 2011, this had gone from a niche blog format to standard practice at major outlets. The Atlantic pointed out that The New York Times and Huffington Post were running their own sad-broker slideshows on their homepages. The meme didn't just document the recession; it shaped how media covered financial panic visually.

As The Atlantic's coverage noted, the meme lifecycle mirrors the markets themselves. Bouts of sad-trader photos get replaced by grinning-men-in-suits the moment the Dow posts a big jump. The schadenfreude is cyclical.

Fun Facts

The blog's first-ever post was a photo of an Asian daytrader doing a facepalm, setting the visual tone for everything that followed.

Google searches for "sad guys on trading floors" peaked in October 2008, the same month the site launched.

Mashable suggested the site functioned as a "definitive recession-meter" — when it ran out of sad brokers, the economy would be healthy again.

The Tumblr is still online, with a tongue-in-cheek post reading: "Happy New Year! 2009 is going to be so much better!".

LA Observed tracked the blog for months before finally spotting a woman trader among the sea of distressed men in September 2011.

Derivatives & Variations

Brokers With Hands on Their Faces

— A nearly identical Tumblr blog launched on October 8, 2008, one day after Sad Guys on Trading Floors, by Matthew R. Robison. It focused specifically on the facepalm gesture and drew its own media coverage[2].

News outlet sad-broker galleries

— By 2011, The New York Times, Huffington Post, and other major news sites were running their own curated slideshows of distressed traders as homepage visual elements, essentially adopting the blog's format[2].

Frequently Asked Questions

References (19)

  1. 1
    Desperate Brokers are the New Lolcats | Mashablearticle
  2. 2
    Sad Guys on Trading Floors | TIMEarticle
  3. 3
    Why We're Looking at Pictures of Sad Brokers Again - The Atlanticarticle
  4. 4
    Sad Guys on Trading Floors - Know Your Memeencyclopedia
  5. 5
    List of Internet phenomenaencyclopedia
  6. 6
    Global financial crisis in October 2008encyclopedia
  7. 7
    2008 financial crisis - Wikipediaencyclopedia
  8. 8
    World Edition - The Atlanticarticle
  9. 9
    *At last, the photo of a woman trader in dismay after big market loss - LA Biz Observedarticle
  10. 10
    Chris Riebschlagerarticle
  11. 11
    Sad Guys on Trading Floorsarticle
  12. 12
    Sad Guys on Trading Floors – a reminder of our present timesarticle
  13. 13
    Sad Guys on Trading Floors - The New York Timesarticle
  14. 14
    Blogger: User Profile: aGreatNotionarticle
  15. 15
    UPROXX – Music Television and Culturesocial
  16. 16
    BHOTF Blogarticle
  17. 17
    Desperate Brokers are the New Lolcats | Mashablearticle
  18. 18
    Best Tumblr + Economic Meltdown Mashup We've Seen: "Sad Guys on Trading Floors" - Business Insiderarticle
  19. 19
    Sad Guys on Trading Floor | Aussie Stock Forumsarticle

Sad Guys On Trading Floors

2008Single-topic blog / captioned photo collectionclassic

Also known as: SGOTF

Sad Guys On Trading Floors is a 2008 Tumblr blog that pairs darkly comedic captions with news photographs of panicked stock traders on exchange floors.

Sad Guys on Trading Floors is a single-topic Tumblr blog that collects news photographs of distressed stock traders and brokers on exchange floors, pairing them with darkly funny captions. Created on October 7, 2008, during the worst week in Dow Jones history, the site turned real financial misery into an early internet meme by treating panicked Wall Street professionals like captioned animals. It drew coverage from TIME, The New York Times, and Mashable, earned a 2009 Webby Award nomination, and resurfaced whenever markets tanked.

wall street memes finance memes tumblr memes single serving site memes late 2000s memes

Overview

Sad Guys on Trading Floors is a Tumblr blog that posts wire-service photographs of traders looking miserable on exchange floors. The images typically show men in rolled-up sleeves and loosened ties clutching their heads, staring at screens in disbelief, or doing full facepalms. Each photo gets a short, snarky caption underneath, turning stock-market despair into comedy. The blog's own tagline put it plainly: "Turning the economic crisis into one of those clever Internet memes".

The format owes a clear debt to LOLcats and the broader captioned-image culture of the late 2000s. TIME called it "the white collar equivalent of Lolcats," and Mashable declared the desperate brokers "the New Lolcats". The humor works on multiple levels: the traders' exaggerated agony, the photographers lurking to capture that perfect grimace, and the absurdity of someone collecting it all into a blog.

Chris Riebschlager, a Kansas City-based interactive art director, and Jess Hemerly, a San Francisco-based blogger, launched the Sad Guys on Trading Floors blog on Tumblr on October 7, 2008. That timing was no accident. The site went live during the week that saw the largest single-week percentage drop in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, worse than any week during the Great Depression. The subprime mortgage crisis had been building since 2007, Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy three weeks earlier, and global markets were in freefall.

The very first post featured a dismayed-looking Asian daytrader mid-facepalm. On launch day, BoingBoing picked it up. The next day, October 8, posts appeared on eBaum's World, MetaFilter, and Aussie Stock Forums. That same day, a similar Tumblr blog called "Brokers With Hands on Their Faces" launched independently, created by Matthew R. Robison.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tumblr
Key People
Chris Riebschlager, Jess Hemerly
Date
2008

Chris Riebschlager, a Kansas City-based interactive art director, and Jess Hemerly, a San Francisco-based blogger, launched the Sad Guys on Trading Floors blog on Tumblr on October 7, 2008. That timing was no accident. The site went live during the week that saw the largest single-week percentage drop in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, worse than any week during the Great Depression. The subprime mortgage crisis had been building since 2007, Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy three weeks earlier, and global markets were in freefall.

The very first post featured a dismayed-looking Asian daytrader mid-facepalm. On launch day, BoingBoing picked it up. The next day, October 8, posts appeared on eBaum's World, MetaFilter, and Aussie Stock Forums. That same day, a similar Tumblr blog called "Brokers With Hands on Their Faces" launched independently, created by Matthew R. Robison.

How It Spread

The blog gained traction fast as the global financial crisis deepened throughout October 2008. The New York Times' Economix blog featured it on October 8, and The Next Web wrote it up the same day, calling it "a reminder of our present times". Business Insider called it the "Best Tumblr + Economic Meltdown Mashup". Later that month, TIME profiled the site, praising the witty captions that elevated it beyond a simple photo gallery. Mashable's coverage framed the blog as a barometer: "once this site starts running out of depressed brokers, it's a sure sign that the economy is healthy again".

In 2009, Sad Guys on Trading Floors earned a Webby Award nomination in the Weird category.

The blog went quiet as markets recovered, but it came roaring back in August 2011 when the Dow Jones dropped more than 600 points following the downgrade of the U.S. government's credit rating. The Atlantic noted the meme had jumped from niche Tumblr culture to the mainstream, with The New York Times itself using sad-broker photo carousels as homepage visual elements. Uproxx highlighted the blog's return that same month.

The Atlantic's coverage included a key insight from Robison, creator of the sister blog Brokers With Hands on Their Faces: "With these photos there are a number of layers to laugh at — the poor broker, the photographer waiting to take that perfect photo of the poor broker, the media who love to run with these photos. And then there's me, this guy who collected them and made a blog, which is totally ridiculous as well".

LA Observed noted a recurring visual quirk across both blogs: the traders pictured were almost always "paunchy guys with their sleeves rolled up and ties askew," until the Financial Times finally ran a photo of a woman trader in dismay after a big market loss in September 2011.

How to Use This Meme

The Sad Guys on Trading Floors format is straightforward:

1

Find a wire-service or news photograph of a trader or broker looking distressed on an exchange floor. The more dramatic the body language (head in hands, mouth agape, thousand-yard stare), the better.

2

Add a short, funny caption that either narrates the trader's inner monologue or gives them a silly nickname. Common approaches include naming them ("Guy With Face On Phone," "Guy Who Doesn't Understand Why This Keeps Happening to Him") or writing a brief joke about their misery.

3

Post during a market downturn for maximum relevance. The format works best when real financial panic is in the news.

Cultural Impact

Sad Guys on Trading Floors was one of the first single-topic Tumblr blogs to break into mainstream media coverage during the 2008 financial crisis. It landed write-ups in TIME, The New York Times, Mashable, Business Insider, The Next Web, and Gawker within its first month. The Webby Award nomination in 2009 confirmed its place in early internet culture.

The blog also helped establish a broader pattern: whenever markets crash, galleries of anguished trader photos flood news sites. By 2011, this had gone from a niche blog format to standard practice at major outlets. The Atlantic pointed out that The New York Times and Huffington Post were running their own sad-broker slideshows on their homepages. The meme didn't just document the recession; it shaped how media covered financial panic visually.

As The Atlantic's coverage noted, the meme lifecycle mirrors the markets themselves. Bouts of sad-trader photos get replaced by grinning-men-in-suits the moment the Dow posts a big jump. The schadenfreude is cyclical.

Fun Facts

The blog's first-ever post was a photo of an Asian daytrader doing a facepalm, setting the visual tone for everything that followed.

Google searches for "sad guys on trading floors" peaked in October 2008, the same month the site launched.

Mashable suggested the site functioned as a "definitive recession-meter" — when it ran out of sad brokers, the economy would be healthy again.

The Tumblr is still online, with a tongue-in-cheek post reading: "Happy New Year! 2009 is going to be so much better!".

LA Observed tracked the blog for months before finally spotting a woman trader among the sea of distressed men in September 2011.

Derivatives & Variations

Brokers With Hands on Their Faces

— A nearly identical Tumblr blog launched on October 8, 2008, one day after Sad Guys on Trading Floors, by Matthew R. Robison. It focused specifically on the facepalm gesture and drew its own media coverage[2].

News outlet sad-broker galleries

— By 2011, The New York Times, Huffington Post, and other major news sites were running their own curated slideshows of distressed traders as homepage visual elements, essentially adopting the blog's format[2].

Frequently Asked Questions