“Stock Photography” meme: meaning, origin and rare card

What does the “Stock Photography” meme mean?

The joke lives in the gap between real life and its catalogue version: people laughing alone with salad, glowing teams around an empty table, gestures nobody actually makes. It expresses irony toward all things artificial and corporate. People use it to caption a stiff presentation, to roast an awkward picture, or to poke fun at a scene that feels fake. Some images, like Hide The Pain Harold, became stars in their own right.

Where does the “Stock Photography” meme come from?

Stock photography is old: halftone printing in the late nineteenth century let newspapers run photographs, and staged shots stood in for events nobody could photograph in time. RobertStock, founded in 1920, became the first major vendor, and iStock, launched in 2000, was the first internet stock site. The mockery came online later, as the pictures spread across 4chan, Reddit and Tumblr, captioned and remixed. The Tumblr blog Awkward Stock Photos caught on, received a cease-and-desist from iStockphoto that took it down, then returned, and it inspired others. The r/stockphotos subreddit was created on January 31, 2012 and replaced the next day by r/wtfstockphotos, and r/youdontsurf followed on October 31, 2013 for captioned images. Spin-offs such as Hide The Pain Harold, a senior model with a strained smile, later turned individual photos into full memes of their own.

1. 2000iStock launches as the first internet stock photo vendor.
2. January 31, 2012The r/stockphotos subreddit is created, then replaced a day later by r/wtfstockphotos.
3. October 31, 2013r/youdontsurf is created for captioned stock photos.
4. April 24, 2015Know Your Meme adds the entry.

How to use the “Stock Photography” meme

• Caption a stock image to point out how staged it looks.
• Illustrate a meeting where everyone smiles for no reason.
• Recreate a typical stock photo with friends and post it beside the original.
• Pair one with a sarcastic remark about corporate messaging.

The “Stock Photography” card in MyMemeCards

Number	No. 22471
Rarity	Rare
Collection	Memes World series 75
Fame	72/100 · #57 of 300
Recycle value	10 MemeCoins (30 in Shiny)

How to get the “Stock Photography” card

Every pack holds 5 meme cards, the first 3 of them Common; Stock Photography comes out of the Memes World series 75 as a rare card. The pack odds say what each rarity weighs.

Your first pack is free and needs no account. After that a new free pack lands every 10 minutes, up to 3 waiting for you. You can also buy the card with MemeCoins on the market, bid for it at auction, or trade it — and a double recycles into 10 MemeCoins.

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