You only think you know the subtext.
June 13, 2013 5:55 PM   Subscribe

Getty Critics is a blog that pokes fun at Getty stock images.
posted by zardoz (31 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh man, this is too good.
posted by grouse at 6:16 PM on June 13, 2013


Sometimes stock images make me so sad.
posted by shothotbot at 6:23 PM on June 13, 2013


I don't love Getty or any other vendor's stock photos, but I'm eternally grateful that Getty licenses a great deal of archival images and footage. The stock stuff pays the bills so,that my doc clients can get great archival materials at reduced rates.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:32 PM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]




See also Catalog Living.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:45 PM on June 13, 2013 [6 favorites]


Viridian Dynamics: made from actual stock video
posted by john-a-dreams at 7:00 PM on June 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


Friend of mine periodically hits me up for help searching stock images for fodder for her latest erotica e-pub. Trying to find anything other than a het couple or a het couple with someone jealously lurking in the background is fucking impossible. I have built up a ton of resentment of stupid stock images as a result, so this blog makes me very happy.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:00 PM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


You can't just drop "[my friend's] latest erotica e-pub" without a hyperlink bro
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:03 PM on June 13, 2013 [9 favorites]


Everyone on here is an asshole, and I guess I actually kind of hate everything about this site, but I can't stop posting!
posted by Comic Sans-Culotte at 7:04 PM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


My wife heard me laughing and assumed I was watching cat videos. I don't know if that's better or worse than the truth.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:04 PM on June 13, 2013 [4 favorites]


I use stock video for my book trailer biz. My favorite weird piece of stock footage is this.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:17 PM on June 13, 2013 [6 favorites]


Angry girlfriend watching husband enjoy television

wait what
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:17 PM on June 13, 2013 [6 favorites]


Obviously she just found out he is married and he is responding by delving into the world of beer and exciting television
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:23 PM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hang on, let me remember her pseudonym. Oh, right! Kathleen Dienne. My latest stock photography triumph (post-processing) doesn't appear to be out yet, but one of the early ones was the cover to this.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:44 PM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Angry girlfriend watching husband enjoy television

wait what


Asymmetric marriage. It's the new thing.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:55 PM on June 13, 2013 [14 favorites]


The writing on this snark blog is particularly good. Bonus points for using Blogspot; bold choice in 2013.
posted by Nelson at 8:23 PM on June 13, 2013


Doesn't say whose girlfriend or husband.
posted by kiltedtaco at 8:36 PM on June 13, 2013


Stupid Getty getting all the attention.

/ex-Corbis employee.
posted by Artw at 8:45 PM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


I lost it at Chef Boyardickhead.
posted by youngergirl44 at 9:01 PM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


Is the blog paying for the use of the images on the blog?

Even if it is, isn't it a violation of the license to recontextualize them in this snarky way?

Not trying to be a spoilsport, but it seems to me this site's gonna get shut down within a week by Getty Images when they find out about it.

Read the license terms of stock photo services some time. There are lots of uses that are verboten.
posted by brianstorms at 9:04 PM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


one of the early ones was the cover to this

I'm confused... apparently that's not vampire porn?
posted by asterix at 10:38 PM on June 13, 2013


It's not like Getty are litigious assholes or anything.
posted by benzenedream at 10:49 PM on June 13, 2013


Is the blog paying for the use of the images on the blog?

Even if it is, isn't it a violation of the license to recontextualize them in this snarky way?


It seems like since this is explicitly criticism of and commentary on the photos themselves, it would legitimately be fair use: copyright definitely does not give the creator of a work any right to prevent people from snarking about it. Not that it would prevent Getty from bludgeoning the person publishing the blog via the court system, even if I'm correct about it being fair use.
posted by XMLicious at 11:07 PM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


The increasingly speculative interpretation here cracked me up.
posted by salvia at 11:14 PM on June 13, 2013


When I was teaching a writing class for high school kids, I used to get them catalogs and have them create wildly imaginative stories about these types of pictures. When they were wiped out from other assignments, I'd usually get a bare bones description of exactly what the pix portrayed, but some of the pieces were absolutely hilarious, really delving into motif and what is wrong with these people and hidden fetishes and all sorts of shenanigans.

I was always pleased to see such cynical snark in my students.

Yes Whitney, I believe the children are our future.

Kids are weird.
posted by kinetic at 5:00 AM on June 14, 2013


Unhappy Hipsters -- poking fun at the people in Dwell, and other architecture mags.
posted by schmod at 6:34 AM on June 14, 2013 [6 favorites]


I laughed out loud (in my squalid cubicle) at the buttering the bagel hole one. Eventually had to navigate away from the page or nothing would get done today.
posted by tommasz at 7:01 AM on June 14, 2013


Catalog living is much better. This, to use the words of Lois Griffin, seems shallow and pedantic.
posted by Kokopuff at 8:19 AM on June 14, 2013


“The accumulation of consecutive rooms in his memory now resembled those displays of grouped elbow chairs on show, and beds, and lamps, and inglenooks which, ignoring all space-time distinctions, commingle in the soft light of a furniture store beyond which it snows, and the dusk deepens, and nobody really loves anybody.”

- from Pnin
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:18 AM on June 14, 2013 [2 favorites]


This use is protected as parody under Fair Use.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:09 AM on June 14, 2013


I'm confused... apparently that's not vampire porn?

That was my first reaction too!
posted by restless_nomad at 10:16 AM on June 14, 2013


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