Who says stock photography has to be serious and boring? One of the rising trends in content marketing and on the Internet is that of communicating everything through humor. Weird stock photos that poke fun at everyday concepts (like stupid stock photos) and stock imagery that is edgy and artsy are proving to be both visually appealing and commercially successful. Like these from Photocase:
Wanna see another example? Hit the blue button and summon up a great collection of photos from Photocase!
Especially for social media marketing (yes, memes) but applicable to nearly any visual content aimed at young demographics (kids nowadays, am I right?) or seeking to set an informal and fun tone, funny images are a design goldmine waiting for you to exploit it! Just one look at our hungry friend right below, and you'll get thousands of fun ideas!
As more creatives and brands adopt funny photos for their social media strategies, and publishers and bloggers resort to bizarre images for editorial content as it happens with hacker stock photos, increasing the demand for professional and legally safe content under this category, most of the stock photo agencies include them in their collections.
Take a tour through the world of weird pictures with us, and discover all the creative and profitable opportunities they hold for you!
Weird Pictures? What in the World?!
Social media mostly fueled the idea of using funny images as a way of communication –which is turning more and more visual as days go by–, first by millennials and now fully embraced by Gen Z (the new consumer market rulers).
It’s not rocket science, really: it's a photograph, illustration, and even a video that portrays things or situations or delivers messages in a humorous, relatable tone. This is also a great way to repurpose those terrible stock images from the old days, which may not have been shot with a “weird” concept in mind but certainly look like it.
It all started as a new way of entertainment and communication online (memes, of course), but wise brands and marketers soon picked up on the fact this type of imagery gets noticed fast and a lot often, so it could be very successful for commercial purposes like social media marketing and brand awareness. Weird photography rose in popularity, so much so that humor was one of the Photography Trends 2019 many big agencies picked up, and it's a concept still seen in the latest Photography Trends 2020.
Memes, Reddit, and the Weirdness in Stock Photography
At this point, anyone who has never heard of memes would have to have spent the last decade on a deserted island and recently reinserted into society. Even if you don’t use them, you likely see them all the time and sort of know what they are: captioned funny images or videos meant to make fun of a particular subject and widely spread across the web.
Reddit is one massive source of memes and funny and quirky images in general. They have entire Subreddit communities dedicated to the subject, like the popular r/WTF (aka WTF stock photos) that is full of weird, awkward, and hilarious photographs, funny stock photos, and illustrations of all kinds of cursed images. Some of them you might not even use in social media or for business ideas, and some of them are from Getty Images since they have such a large library.
Even more interesting, some years ago, Internauts started noticing that many bad stock photos have a clearly cheesy, cringe-worthy, or only quirky vibe to them that makes them great for humor material. Think of all those businessmen creepily smiling and making eye contact as they shake hands or all those beautiful women who crack up laughing as they take a bite of their salads.
So many of them ended up becoming popular memes –you can learn more in our article about the Best Stock Photo Memes–. Again, Reddit has a segment focused on this, the Subreddit “WTF stock photos.”
This all means: Those photos can be great funny pictures to engage your target audience, for product placement and make your visuals rock, as long as you know where to find the kind of weird stock photo that will do the trick.
When Should I Use Weird and Funny Images?
Weird and funny stock photography has plenty of possible uses, but in terms of results drive, social media marketing is their realm.
Social network platforms today are defined by their instant nature. On them, content is consumed by the second, and you only have a few moments to catch users' attention, deliver a message, and leave a long-lasting impression. Hey, no pressure!
Producing visuals with weird images and funny concepts is great for achieving this, as a lot of social media users are scrolling through their feeds and discovering content as a way of light entertainment. A humorous image that made them giggle has a lot more chance of being remembered and even shared.
Millennials invented memes and popularized the use of imagery as a primary means of communication. But Gen Z’s are the ones taking visual content to a whole new level of social interaction. From funny and cute selfie filters to instant messaging stickers and GIFs, the new generation of Internauts and consumers live and breathe through images, and they surely love a weird image that stands out from the norm.
Appealing to your followers’ sense of humor and hunger for crisp images to share is a smart strategy to deepen their engagement with your brand and strengthen your online presence. So, while weird photos may not be everyone’s taste for a proper marketing campaign –it depends on your brand identity and your target audience, really–, a weird stock photo can be rather efficient for daily posts that keep your timeline up to date and impressive.
Find the perfect image that both conveys your message and represents your brand in a way that would make even the most serious of your customers crack a smile at least. And get creative with the copy for a powerful combo of humor that makes your audience’s day a bit brighter!
Where to Get the Best Weird Pictures for Professional and Commercial Use
Let’s talk about where to find weird pictures suitable for professional use. Because as we mentioned, you can always find them all over the web on social sharing platforms, for example, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, to name a few. You may think those images are just free to grab and use, right? Wrong! Those pictures are very likely author copyrighted and not licensed. Meaning? You cannot simply grab a funny image from Reddit and put it in your design. And if such design is for business purposes? Then forget about working with it – trust us, the list of legal risk is so not worth it. You can find out more in this article about the dangers of using free photos from the web in your work.
The good news is that agencies are selling funny and quirky stock photos under Royalty-Free licenses. Many of the best stock photo sites around include this kind of imagery. So you can use them safely and even create your meme-like concepts with them.
Photocase: Enter the Realm of Quirky Stock Photos
There is one stock photography agency that excels when it comes to quirky, unique, and fun-loving images:
Photocase is a German non-stock photography agency with almost two decades in business that has built a vibrant, irreverent collection of images that challenge your everyday stock photo look. In their galleries, you can find all kinds of original, artsy, cheeky, and exciting pictures with an evident and modern Berlin vibe that is bound to appear on Instagram posts. The images that accompany this article are almost all from Photocase’s collection.
All pictures are carefully hand picked, and they have a very tight curation process meant to ensure only top-quality content makes it into their catalog. For more details, you can check out our Photocase review.
The agency sells royalty-free stock photos on demand in a very straightforward system: images cost between $14 and $42 according to size, and you can save more by buying credit packs that you pay upfront and later use to download the photos you want. And if you use our special Photocase Coupon Code, you will get cool freebies plus a great discount on your purchase!
We think Photocase is by far the best place to buy funny stock images to use in your social media marketing efforts and any other cool projects you have in mind. From cats wearing glasses to people sporting crazy hats, they provide quality, variety, uniqueness, affordable pricing, and very flexible licensing terms. What more could we ask?
We take no responsibility for the results, though!
iStock: Weird and Exclusive Images, Easier to Find
iStock is a renowned stock photo agency famous for its highly curated, two-fold catalog that features budget-friendly images (Essentials collection) and exclusive high-value pictures (Signature collection). Both of them have abundant weird, funny, and unique photos waiting to be found and turned into a unique design! Here is our iStock review for more information. And for samples of bizarre imagery they have, just have a look at this image below.
iStock's images have the added benefit of the iStock license, one of the most flexible and convenient coverages for royalty-free pictures for commercial use –see it for yourself in our in-depth guide to iStock license. Not only that, but they're also very affordable: you can download a royalty-free, quirky, and special picture for as little as 22 cents. No kidding! Find out more in our iStock pricing breakdown. And what's even better, our exclusive iStock promo code lets you save with a 15% discount on subscriptions and credit packs, and up to 25% discount on large credit packs. Wow.
Another highlight of the iStock service is that searching for images is a breezy process. Despite having a huge depository with millions of files, localizing the perfect photo for your project is made easy thanks to its advanced search feature –that lets you search and refine results with great precision– and its unique Visual GPS, an interactive online tool that exploits data from millions of user searches to identify and report on the trendiest and best-performing pictures for any topic and style you can imagine.
With Visual GPS, you can search for a specific theme, such as “weird,” and adjust the region to worldwide, then the time frame for the last six months, and boom! You get a detailed report showing you what subtopics and terms are popular within weird imagery – such as “bizarre” and “crazy,” what industries have a higher interest in them, and a beautiful selection of the most sought-after photos and videos that fit these criteria. You could even compare two terms, such as “weird” and “bizarre,” to see how the trendy pictures for each differ and find your most appropriate niche. And guess what? It's entirely free to use.
Are you intrigued? Then head over to iStock right now and get your on-demand credit pack or monthly or annual subscription! Or simply use the search bar below to see what kind of weird pictures they have. If you search for “surprised cat,” just to name one, the results are one funny image after the other.
Put Your Creativity into Gear with Weird Stock Images
What is so cool about quirky and funny photos is that they can take you a bit out of your comfort zone when it comes to designing visuals for marketing and overall commercial purposes. They give you a chance to have fun with concepts and let your creativity run free.
And the best of all is that they drive results home – if you use them wisely, mixing your unique creative eye with your best business skills, you can come up with killer visuals that charm your social media follower base. Hey, you can even go viral!
So, if you haven't explored the funny imagery lane yet, we invite you to do so today! And Photocase's unique collection is undoubtedly a great place to get started.
Let us know how it goes!
PS: Too weird for you? Shutterstock offers all sorts of original and quirky assets that will still make your projects pop out!
A beautiful and bubbly teen girl in pink top and white skirt in a joyful mood poses with lollipop with various looks on light grey background. half length portrait
People
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hand drawn space related object in seamless background
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Question and exclamation marks
Transportation
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bright picture of angry man with megaphone
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Sketch question and exclamation marks on blackboard design. Vector illustration
The Arts
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35mm film with motion blur on a white background
Objects
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Kid drawing with family, car, animal, house and other object
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Businessman on concrete ladder looking at question mark. Confusion and solution concept.
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Happy Halloween on White Background illustration
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