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 more? Hit the blue button and summon up a great collection of photos from Photocase!
Especially for social media marketing (memes, anyone?) but applicable to nearly any visual content aimed at young demographics –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 like 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 trend 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 a situation or delivers messages in a humorous, relatable tone.
It all started as a new way of entertainment and communication online (memes, anyone?) but wise brands and marketers soon proved this type of imagery could be very successful for commercial purposes like social media marketing and brand awareness. 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 that make fun of a particular subject and are widely spread across the web.
Reddit is one massive source for 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 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 images 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!
Weird images and funny concepts are great to achieve this, as a lot of social media users are scrolling through their feeds and discovering content as a way of light entertainment. A humorous photo 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 picture 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 –, depends on your brand identity and your target audience, really–, they’re mostly rather efficient for daily posts that keep your timeline up to date and impressive.
Find the perfect pictures that both convey your message and represent 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 like Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, to name a few. But those images are very likely copyrighted, and not licensed. Meaning? You cannot simply grab a funny photo from Reddit and put it in your design. And if such design is for business purposes? Then don’t even think about it – trust us, the 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 selected, and they have a very tight curation process that ensures 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. They provide quality, variety, uniqueness, affordable pricing, and very flexible licensing terms. What more could we ask?
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!
Image header: Copyright suschaa / Photocase.com, all rights reserved
