Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People In Stock Photos Share The Strangest Place They've Seen Their Photo Used

People In Stock Photos Share The Strangest Place They've Seen Their Photo Used
StartupStockPhotos/Pixabay

Professional models get used to seeing their face in unexpected places, but stock photo models are often amateurs. They may only appear in one set of photos and never think about it again—until they suddenly see themselves staring back from a billboard or magazine ad, or even a PSA.


Reddit user u/FreddTM asked:

"People in stock photos, what's the weirdest way you've seen your photos being used?"

10.

When I was a kid my mom took me for a photoshoot, then a month later I was on a pamphlet that said “Millions of children don’t have homes, adopt one today”

-ChiefMNM

9.

I'm in the header of my university's grad school application. Whenever someone posts a screenshot of their acceptance email, Facebook facial recognition asks if I want to tag myself.

-utsa7

8.

I ended up finding myself on one of those “Now Hiring” posts on Facebook... for a company I was trying to get hired at.

-WillardFlame

7.

I’m on the opposite end. I’m a graphic designer so I spend a lot of time on stock photo sites and I have SO many questions. Some of the photos I’ve seen....there’s no possible context that would make sense for them to be used anywhere.

-MorganKxoxo

6.

My family did a stock photo shoot when our kids where young (like 1 and 3). A picture they took on our porch ended up in the opening credits for The Americans.

-mellotronplayer

5.

Not me but my best friend: He did a photo shoot in some construction-worker garb and a hard hat. We live in North Carolina USA. I'm on a business trip in Chicago, and I stop by a Walmart for some supplies. I'm in the men's work clothes isle and there's my buddy prominently on the wrapping of 50ish packages of work shirts. It was a weird "wait, where am I?" moment. I knew he did some modeling, but not specifics.

I sent him a pic, he had no idea it had been used. The guy is in every Walmart in the country and had no idea.

-Boris_art

4.

I did a stock photo shoot about 10 years ago and my photos show up in the weirdest places:

3 ex-boyfriends have texted me out of the blue after my stock photo showed up in their work training modules

Someone in my senior capstone class used my photo in their class presentation and didn't realize it was me until everyone kept awkwardly looking at the screen and looking back at me.

Every so often, my face pops up in a "sassy black lady" meme, paired with text like "DEVIL DON'T TRY ME TODAY!" or "TOO BLESSED TO BE STRESSED! TYPE AMEN IF YOU AGREE!"

The weirdest in my opinion: My mom decided to join some crappy MLM makeup company because she was flipping through their catalog and saw that they had used one of my old stock photos as one of their makeup models. I was very obviously not wearing their makeup in the photos and my stock photo didn't match any of the other models' photos. Basically, whoever designed the catalog was like "oh snap, we need some diversity in here", but they were too lazy to actually hire another model so they just grabbed a stock photo of a black chick and called it a day.

The strange thing is that my mom joined the company because my photo was in the catalog, but she had to have known that I wasn't wearing the company's makeup....because she personally did my makeup for that stock photo shoot 5+ years earlier.

-calcetina

3.

I'm in an add campaign in my home state in Australia for the government. I'm the face of "don't buy alcohol for underage people". It's just me looking like a Dad who's thinking of buying a drink, obviously for a teenager some where. Ironically I don't actually have my own kids. I get emails from people I haven't heard from in years saying "I saw you on the wall of the bottle shop!" Which is kinda funny.

-kungfusyme

2.

I have some friends that found one of their wedding pictures from Facebook somehow printed on a pillow in a market in a middle-eastern country. Like... they just randomly happened upon their wedding photo in a random street market.

They are from the U.S.

-ScoobyDeezy

1.

I didn't even know I was in a stock photo until my Grandma bought a picture frame at Sears with my t-ball team picture in it.

-thecontinental00

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Melania Trump
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Melania Just Held A Bizarre Press Conference To Debunk 'False Smears' Related To Jeffrey Epstein—And Everyone Had The Same Response

First Lady Melania Trump had everyone thinking the same thing after she held a bizarre press conference on Thursday to deny that she had anything but casual ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the late disgraced financier, pedophile, sexual abuser, and sex trafficker.

Mrs. Trump publicly denied any ties to convicted sex offenders Epstein and his procurer Ghislaine Maxwell, saying claims linking her to Epstein are “lies” meant to damage her reputation. She said she met her husband, President Donald Trump at a New York City party in 1998 and did not meet Epstein until 2000, contradicting a witness statement in the Epstein files that alleges Epstein introduced the couple.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sarah McBride; Nancy Mace
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Dem Rep. Sarah McBride Perfectly Shames Nancy Mace For Her Transphobic Response To McBride's Condemnation Of Trump

Delaware Democratic Representative Sarah McBride pushed back at South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace after Mace responded with transphobia to McBride's criticism of President Donald Trump's genocidal threat to kill the "whole civilization" of Iran.

Trump has insisted that God supports his war on Iran and declared—before a provisional ceasefire was announced—that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" ahead of a deadline to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges that legal scholars and world leaders have said would constitute war crimes.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of JD Vance
News Nation

JD Vance Dragged After Making Bizarre 'Skydiving' Analogy About His Wife To Explain Iran Ceasefire Deal

Vice President JD Vance had critics raising their eyebrows after he used a bizarre analogy about his wife–Second Lady Usha Vance—going skydiving while attempting to explain the United States' position on Iran's right to enrich uranium.

Vance addressed reporters on the tarmac at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport as he left Hungary, where he had voiced the Trump administration’s support for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán only days before the country’s elections.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @mikemancusi's Instagram video
@mikemancusi/Instagram

Comedian Explains How Millennials' Midlife Crises Are Different From Past Generations—And He's Spot On

Don't make promises you cannot keep, unless your goal is to hurt someone.

Millennials know that practically better than anyone. They were fed a long and impassioned series of advice, hyper-focused on the importance of getting a college degree in order to find a good job. They were also force-fed traditionalist ideals of getting married, having kids, and buying a nice house with the money they'd be making from that great job, of course.

Keep ReadingShow less