Stock Photography

2011Image macro / exploitable template / reaction imageclassic

Also known as: Stock Photo Memes · Weird Stock Photos · Absurd Stock Photos

Stock Photography is a 2011 meme phenomenon mining commercial stock libraries like Getty Images for absurdly staged images that became iconic templates like Hide the Pain Harold and Distracted Boyfriend.

Stock photography, the commercial image licensing industry dominated by agencies like Getty Images and Shutterstock, became an unlikely goldmine for internet humor when users discovered the bizarre, staged, and often inexplicable images lurking in these libraries1. From the Distracted Boyfriend to Hide the Pain Harold, stock photos turned into some of the internet's most recognizable and endlessly remixable meme templates4. The trend of mining stock libraries for absurd content gained traction in the early 2010s, and dedicated communities like the Overly Specific Stock Photos Tumblr turned the practice into an art form2.

stock photo exploitablesexploitable templatesabsurdist humor memesaccidental fame memes

Overview

Stock photography memes draw from the vast libraries of commercial image agencies where photographers stage generic scenarios for licensing. The images are meant to illustrate concepts like "teamwork," "success," or "family conflict" for use in advertisements, corporate presentations, and editorial content1. But the staged nature of these photos, combined with vague or overly literal visual metaphors, creates an uncanny quality that makes them perfect meme material.

The genre covers a huge range: a man arguing on a banana phone in an office, a dog in a Santa suit wearing sunglasses, a woman wearing a dress made of lunch meat, someone riding a tiny tricycle in a business suit3. The disconnect between the artificial cheerfulness of stock imagery and the absurdity of the scenarios is what makes the whole category so memeable. Professional lighting and high production values applied to completely unhinged subject matter create a specific kind of comedy that the internet latched onto hard.

Stock photography has existed as a commercial industry since the mid-20th century, with agencies like Getty Images becoming major platforms for licensing royalty-free and rights-managed images1. The meme potential of these images was always latent, but it took the internet's collective attention to unlock it.

The shift from commercial tool to meme source happened gradually in the late 2000s and early 2010s as users began sharing the strangest images they could find in stock libraries. Tumblr played a key role in organizing this trend, with blogs like Overly Specific Stock Photos curating collections of the most bizarre offerings, including gems like "Reindeer Man Rides Bike while Santa Woman Talks on Banana Phone and Rabbi Tosses a Football while Holding a Menorah"2.

Blog posts cataloging "the worst stock photos" became a popular format. One such roundup from 2019 documented dozens of absurd images, from a man in XXXXL jeans pulled up to his shoulders to a poodle trimmed in Minecraft-style blocks3. These collections highlighted just how deep the well of weird stock content runs.

Origin & Background

Platform
Stock photo agencies (source images), Tumblr / Reddit / Twitter (meme spread)
Creator
Unknown; notable contributors include Antonio Guillem[4]
Date
~2011 (as a distinct meme genre)

Stock photography has existed as a commercial industry since the mid-20th century, with agencies like Getty Images becoming major platforms for licensing royalty-free and rights-managed images. The meme potential of these images was always latent, but it took the internet's collective attention to unlock it.

The shift from commercial tool to meme source happened gradually in the late 2000s and early 2010s as users began sharing the strangest images they could find in stock libraries. Tumblr played a key role in organizing this trend, with blogs like Overly Specific Stock Photos curating collections of the most bizarre offerings, including gems like "Reindeer Man Rides Bike while Santa Woman Talks on Banana Phone and Rabbi Tosses a Football while Holding a Menorah".

Blog posts cataloging "the worst stock photos" became a popular format. One such roundup from 2019 documented dozens of absurd images, from a man in XXXXL jeans pulled up to his shoulders to a poodle trimmed in Minecraft-style blocks. These collections highlighted just how deep the well of weird stock content runs.

How It Spread

The stock photography meme genre spread across multiple platforms in distinct waves. Tumblr blogs dedicated to curating bizarre stock images attracted large followings in the early-to-mid 2010s. Reddit communities like r/wtfstockphotos and r/youdontsurf turned stock images into exploitable templates, adding absurd or dark captions to the already strange visuals.

The biggest individual breakout came with the Distracted Boyfriend meme. Photographer Antonio Guillem shot the original image in Girona, Spain in mid-2015 as part of a stock photo session about infidelity "in a playful and fun way". The image was uploaded to Shutterstock with the caption "Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl".

The first known meme use appeared in a Turkish progressive rock Facebook group in January 2017, labeling the man as Phil Collins being distracted from progressive rock by pop music. The image went fully viral on August 19, 2017, when a Twitter user posted it with the man labeled "the youth" being distracted from "capitalism" by "socialism," a version that racked up over 35,000 retweets and nearly 100,000 likes.

Blog writers began producing roundups of ridiculous stock photography as standalone content. These collections, which documented everything from a business dog working on a laptop to a man being attacked by an oversized sneeze, drove further interest in the genre. The blogger behind one such collection noted that stock photos "pertain to cheap business ads, spur-of-the-moment PSAs, and low-budget greeting cards" but contained images far too strange for any of those purposes.

How to Use This Meme

Stock photography memes come in several formats:

Object Labeling (Distracted Boyfriend style): Find a stock photo showing a clear dynamic between subjects. Label each person or object to represent abstract concepts, creating an analogy. The Distracted Boyfriend template, for example, typically uses the boyfriend as someone making a choice, the girlfriend as the responsible option, and the other woman as the tempting alternative.

Captioned Absurdity: Take a genuinely bizarre stock photo and add a caption that either explains the scene in deadpan terms or creates a fictional narrative. The humor comes from treating the staged insanity as completely normal.

"You vs. the guy she told you not to worry about": Stock photos showing contrasting figures in the same frame get labeled to create comparison jokes.

Curated collections: Compile the strangest stock photos into themed roundups, adding commentary to each. This format works well for blog posts and social media threads.

The key to stock photo memes is the tension between the photos' commercial polish and their bizarre content. The best examples find images that were clearly created to illustrate some vague concept but ended up looking completely unhinged.

Cultural Impact

Stock photography memes bridged the gap between commercial media and internet culture in ways few other meme genres managed. The Distracted Boyfriend image attracted coverage from The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Daily Dot, and The New York Times, which published the meme in its Business section in May 2019 to illustrate the proposed Renault-Fiat Chrysler merger.

Nathan Heller of The New Yorker wrote that "the delight of the Distracted Boyfriend meme was not unlike the perverse pleasure taken by Distracted Boyfriend himself: it allowed America to turn its attention away from much more important commitments". The meme was listed by Paper magazine as one that defined 2017.

The photographer Antonio Guillem told The Guardian in August 2017 that "I didn't even know what a meme is until recently. The models discovered the meme on social media and they told me about it". The models, known by their stage names "Mario" and "Laura," first learned about it when people started posting memes to their personal social media accounts.

Brands adopted stock photo memes quickly once they went viral. In November 2020, French clothing company Jules used the Distracted Boyfriend in a commercial. The Hungarian government even used another stock photo of the same two models in a campaign to promote child birth, which prompted widespread ridicule.

The "Distracted Boyfriend" raised copyright questions as well. Guillem stated that his images "are subject to copyright laws and the license agreements of the microstock agencies" but acknowledged that most people using them as memes were "doing it in good faith".

Fun Facts

The Distracted Boyfriend stock photo models "Laura" described how people laughed at them during the shoot because she had to maintain a serious expression while filming fake infidelity scenes in public in Girona.

One roundup of bizarre stock photos includes an image of a man in the desert using a laptop with no apparent Wi-Fi signal, elephants riding bicycles and scooters, and a business dog checking stock prices on a laptop.

The first known meme use of the Distracted Boyfriend had nothing to do with relationships. It was about Phil Collins abandoning progressive rock for pop music.

Getty Images, one of the world's largest stock photo agencies, generates revenue from both the original commercial use AND the viral attention these images receive as memes.

The New York Times Business section used the Distracted Boyfriend meme unironically to illustrate the Renault/Fiat Chrysler merger story in 2019.

Derivatives & Variations

Distracted Boyfriend Variations:

Users found other photos from Guillem's same shoot featuring the three stock models, creating extended storylines and sequels[4].

Historical Art Parallels:

A Twitter user noted in April 2018 that Joshua Reynolds' 1761 painting *David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy* was the "18th-century equivalent" of the Distracted Boyfriend, and the painting itself became a meme template[4].

Mission: Impossible Comparison:

In January 2018, social media users spotted similarities between the Distracted Boyfriend format and a *Mission: Impossible – Fallout* teaser image featuring Henry Cavill and Angela Bassett[4].

Distracted Groom:

A photo of a groom apparently checking out another woman went viral on Twitter in October 2018 as a real-world version of the stock photo meme[4].

Charlie Chaplin Version:

Film writer Peter Goldberg posted a scene from Chaplin's 1922 short *Pay Day* that mirrored the Distracted Boyfriend composition[4].

Venice Ice Cream Photo:

A July 2018 photograph of a woman eating ice cream near a couple holding hands in Venice went viral because of its visual similarity to the stock photo template[4].

Overly Specific Stock Photos:

A dedicated Tumblr blog that curates the most absurdly detailed stock images, turning curation itself into a meme format[2].

Frequently Asked Questions

Stock Photography

2011Image macro / exploitable template / reaction imageclassic

Also known as: Stock Photo Memes · Weird Stock Photos · Absurd Stock Photos

Stock Photography is a 2011 meme phenomenon mining commercial stock libraries like Getty Images for absurdly staged images that became iconic templates like Hide the Pain Harold and Distracted Boyfriend.

Stock photography, the commercial image licensing industry dominated by agencies like Getty Images and Shutterstock, became an unlikely goldmine for internet humor when users discovered the bizarre, staged, and often inexplicable images lurking in these libraries. From the Distracted Boyfriend to Hide the Pain Harold, stock photos turned into some of the internet's most recognizable and endlessly remixable meme templates. The trend of mining stock libraries for absurd content gained traction in the early 2010s, and dedicated communities like the Overly Specific Stock Photos Tumblr turned the practice into an art form.

stock photo exploitables exploitable templates absurdist humor memes accidental fame memes

Overview

Stock photography memes draw from the vast libraries of commercial image agencies where photographers stage generic scenarios for licensing. The images are meant to illustrate concepts like "teamwork," "success," or "family conflict" for use in advertisements, corporate presentations, and editorial content. But the staged nature of these photos, combined with vague or overly literal visual metaphors, creates an uncanny quality that makes them perfect meme material.

The genre covers a huge range: a man arguing on a banana phone in an office, a dog in a Santa suit wearing sunglasses, a woman wearing a dress made of lunch meat, someone riding a tiny tricycle in a business suit. The disconnect between the artificial cheerfulness of stock imagery and the absurdity of the scenarios is what makes the whole category so memeable. Professional lighting and high production values applied to completely unhinged subject matter create a specific kind of comedy that the internet latched onto hard.

Stock photography has existed as a commercial industry since the mid-20th century, with agencies like Getty Images becoming major platforms for licensing royalty-free and rights-managed images. The meme potential of these images was always latent, but it took the internet's collective attention to unlock it.

The shift from commercial tool to meme source happened gradually in the late 2000s and early 2010s as users began sharing the strangest images they could find in stock libraries. Tumblr played a key role in organizing this trend, with blogs like Overly Specific Stock Photos curating collections of the most bizarre offerings, including gems like "Reindeer Man Rides Bike while Santa Woman Talks on Banana Phone and Rabbi Tosses a Football while Holding a Menorah".

Blog posts cataloging "the worst stock photos" became a popular format. One such roundup from 2019 documented dozens of absurd images, from a man in XXXXL jeans pulled up to his shoulders to a poodle trimmed in Minecraft-style blocks. These collections highlighted just how deep the well of weird stock content runs.

Origin & Background

Platform
Stock photo agencies (source images), Tumblr / Reddit / Twitter (meme spread)
Creator
Unknown; notable contributors include Antonio Guillem[4]
Date
~2011 (as a distinct meme genre)

Stock photography has existed as a commercial industry since the mid-20th century, with agencies like Getty Images becoming major platforms for licensing royalty-free and rights-managed images. The meme potential of these images was always latent, but it took the internet's collective attention to unlock it.

The shift from commercial tool to meme source happened gradually in the late 2000s and early 2010s as users began sharing the strangest images they could find in stock libraries. Tumblr played a key role in organizing this trend, with blogs like Overly Specific Stock Photos curating collections of the most bizarre offerings, including gems like "Reindeer Man Rides Bike while Santa Woman Talks on Banana Phone and Rabbi Tosses a Football while Holding a Menorah".

Blog posts cataloging "the worst stock photos" became a popular format. One such roundup from 2019 documented dozens of absurd images, from a man in XXXXL jeans pulled up to his shoulders to a poodle trimmed in Minecraft-style blocks. These collections highlighted just how deep the well of weird stock content runs.

How It Spread

The stock photography meme genre spread across multiple platforms in distinct waves. Tumblr blogs dedicated to curating bizarre stock images attracted large followings in the early-to-mid 2010s. Reddit communities like r/wtfstockphotos and r/youdontsurf turned stock images into exploitable templates, adding absurd or dark captions to the already strange visuals.

The biggest individual breakout came with the Distracted Boyfriend meme. Photographer Antonio Guillem shot the original image in Girona, Spain in mid-2015 as part of a stock photo session about infidelity "in a playful and fun way". The image was uploaded to Shutterstock with the caption "Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl".

The first known meme use appeared in a Turkish progressive rock Facebook group in January 2017, labeling the man as Phil Collins being distracted from progressive rock by pop music. The image went fully viral on August 19, 2017, when a Twitter user posted it with the man labeled "the youth" being distracted from "capitalism" by "socialism," a version that racked up over 35,000 retweets and nearly 100,000 likes.

Blog writers began producing roundups of ridiculous stock photography as standalone content. These collections, which documented everything from a business dog working on a laptop to a man being attacked by an oversized sneeze, drove further interest in the genre. The blogger behind one such collection noted that stock photos "pertain to cheap business ads, spur-of-the-moment PSAs, and low-budget greeting cards" but contained images far too strange for any of those purposes.

How to Use This Meme

Stock photography memes come in several formats:

Object Labeling (Distracted Boyfriend style): Find a stock photo showing a clear dynamic between subjects. Label each person or object to represent abstract concepts, creating an analogy. The Distracted Boyfriend template, for example, typically uses the boyfriend as someone making a choice, the girlfriend as the responsible option, and the other woman as the tempting alternative.

Captioned Absurdity: Take a genuinely bizarre stock photo and add a caption that either explains the scene in deadpan terms or creates a fictional narrative. The humor comes from treating the staged insanity as completely normal.

"You vs. the guy she told you not to worry about": Stock photos showing contrasting figures in the same frame get labeled to create comparison jokes.

Curated collections: Compile the strangest stock photos into themed roundups, adding commentary to each. This format works well for blog posts and social media threads.

The key to stock photo memes is the tension between the photos' commercial polish and their bizarre content. The best examples find images that were clearly created to illustrate some vague concept but ended up looking completely unhinged.

Cultural Impact

Stock photography memes bridged the gap between commercial media and internet culture in ways few other meme genres managed. The Distracted Boyfriend image attracted coverage from The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Daily Dot, and The New York Times, which published the meme in its Business section in May 2019 to illustrate the proposed Renault-Fiat Chrysler merger.

Nathan Heller of The New Yorker wrote that "the delight of the Distracted Boyfriend meme was not unlike the perverse pleasure taken by Distracted Boyfriend himself: it allowed America to turn its attention away from much more important commitments". The meme was listed by Paper magazine as one that defined 2017.

The photographer Antonio Guillem told The Guardian in August 2017 that "I didn't even know what a meme is until recently. The models discovered the meme on social media and they told me about it". The models, known by their stage names "Mario" and "Laura," first learned about it when people started posting memes to their personal social media accounts.

Brands adopted stock photo memes quickly once they went viral. In November 2020, French clothing company Jules used the Distracted Boyfriend in a commercial. The Hungarian government even used another stock photo of the same two models in a campaign to promote child birth, which prompted widespread ridicule.

The "Distracted Boyfriend" raised copyright questions as well. Guillem stated that his images "are subject to copyright laws and the license agreements of the microstock agencies" but acknowledged that most people using them as memes were "doing it in good faith".

Fun Facts

The Distracted Boyfriend stock photo models "Laura" described how people laughed at them during the shoot because she had to maintain a serious expression while filming fake infidelity scenes in public in Girona.

One roundup of bizarre stock photos includes an image of a man in the desert using a laptop with no apparent Wi-Fi signal, elephants riding bicycles and scooters, and a business dog checking stock prices on a laptop.

The first known meme use of the Distracted Boyfriend had nothing to do with relationships. It was about Phil Collins abandoning progressive rock for pop music.

Getty Images, one of the world's largest stock photo agencies, generates revenue from both the original commercial use AND the viral attention these images receive as memes.

The New York Times Business section used the Distracted Boyfriend meme unironically to illustrate the Renault/Fiat Chrysler merger story in 2019.

Derivatives & Variations

Distracted Boyfriend Variations:

Users found other photos from Guillem's same shoot featuring the three stock models, creating extended storylines and sequels[4].

Historical Art Parallels:

A Twitter user noted in April 2018 that Joshua Reynolds' 1761 painting *David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy* was the "18th-century equivalent" of the Distracted Boyfriend, and the painting itself became a meme template[4].

Mission: Impossible Comparison:

In January 2018, social media users spotted similarities between the Distracted Boyfriend format and a *Mission: Impossible – Fallout* teaser image featuring Henry Cavill and Angela Bassett[4].

Distracted Groom:

A photo of a groom apparently checking out another woman went viral on Twitter in October 2018 as a real-world version of the stock photo meme[4].

Charlie Chaplin Version:

Film writer Peter Goldberg posted a scene from Chaplin's 1922 short *Pay Day* that mirrored the Distracted Boyfriend composition[4].

Venice Ice Cream Photo:

A July 2018 photograph of a woman eating ice cream near a couple holding hands in Venice went viral because of its visual similarity to the stock photo template[4].

Overly Specific Stock Photos:

A dedicated Tumblr blog that curates the most absurdly detailed stock images, turning curation itself into a meme format[2].

Frequently Asked Questions