Stock photography is one of my favorite things about the internet. It's so corny and mysterious and strangely telling—like this weird mirror universe where everyone wears the same camisole and eats yogurt all day with confused white babies. It's like a window into Heaven for the most boring person in the world.
Because stock photos trade in generalities, specificity is financial suicide. And without specificity, people can't be people—we can only be groups. Women can't work on cars without being either sexy or stupid. Fat people can only do fat-related things, like be frustrated about shopping, or not fit into a pair of jeans. In stock photography, there can't be any backstory required, because if the photo comes with its own story it's useless in the marketplace. A photo needs to be as vague as possible, and play into the stories that people already know. Unfortunately, the stories that most people know are the old, fucked-up ones, which means that stock photos tend to reinforce some not-awesome cultural norms (and invent some totally bananas new ones). Hilarity ensues.
I decided to dig around and find out what stock photography has to say about me, the modern woman. I learned so much about myself, you guys! Mainly I learned that I need to cut out this blogging shit and GO DO SOME YOGA RIGHT NOW.
Monday, 7:00 am. I wake up in my completely white bed. Everything in my house is white, including me.
Monday, 7:05 am. Screw you, alarm clock!
Monday, 7:23 am. Time to get dressed! All of my clothes are white, except on my "cheat days," when I wear very very light blue even though it kind of makes me feel like a whore.
Monday, 7:45 am. For breakfast, i eat piles of fruit. Piles and piles of fruit. I FUCKING LOVE FRUIT, YOU GUYS.
Monday, 7:46 am. MUG TIME!!!!!
Monday, 8:05 am. This is the part where I do yoga for four days straight. I love yoga more than my own family. It's totally like the fruit of activities.
Friday, 8:05 am. After yoga I head to the office, where my job is being confused near some papers. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I make sure to shrug dramatically at my laptop.
Friday, 6:00 pm. After dinner (which, as we all know, is the world's most hilarious salad), I spend a few hours experiencing an extremely unconvincing stomach ache.
Friday, 8:00 pm. Gleeful jumping.
Friday, 10 pm. Then it's my very, very sexy bedtime.
Photo credit: (C) AnnaOmelchenko / Stockfresh.
Photo credit: (C) choreograph / Stockfresh.
Photo credit: (C) dolgachov / Stockfresh.
Photo credit: (C) yuri_arcurs / Stockfresh.