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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27875 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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Huh. The first few stock images that come to mind are a mixed bag. Harold, old white guy. “Why can’t I hold all these limes,” young black guy. “Distracted boyfriend,” three white people, one of whom is male. Maybe those are just dated?

Googling “stock photo” and looking at the first page of results gives a bunch of white people, mostly solo. The first black guy is playing a saxophone—does that count as stereotyping? There are a few Middle Eastern men, a couple Indians, and a single dog.

So I’m not really seeing it.

If you had to search for it, perhaps it's because you're not paying attention when you come across it organically.

Let's try this. I'll go one-by-one to websites from Fortune 500 companies in descending order and see how white or nonwhite the photos of people on their home page are. Sound pretty objective? Alright, let's play.

  1. Walmart. Black guy.
  2. Amazon. Bunch of product images. I don't really feel like revealing to the world what Amazon wants me to buy again.
  3. ExxonMobile. First guy is poorly lit but the face look kind of black to me when zooming in. Either way, the next person is a black woman too, followed by a white man.
  4. Apple. Black woman (on the watch).
  5. UnitedHealth Group. Asians.
  6. CVSHealth. Female is ambiguous, but the guy is nonwhite.
  7. Berkshire Hathaway. No photos of people.
  8. Alphabet. No photos of people.
  9. McKesson. Black woman.
  10. Chevron. White woman.
  11. Cencora. White woman. Nonwhites are nonetheless 3 out of 5 of the people whose races are visible on the home page.
  12. Costco. Two black people.
  13. Microsoft. Black person. 4 out of 5 of those with visible faces on the home page are nonwhite.
  14. Cardinal Health. Ambiguous, but I'd say multiracial.
  15. Cigna. A white male!
  16. Marathon Petroleum. 2 out of 3 white.
  17. Phillips 66. 2 out of 3 nonwhite.
  18. Valero Energy. Some of the people on the boat seem white, but they're distant and backs are turned. First face is black.
  19. Ford. White guy, followed by ambiguous woman and 4/6 of the remainder being black
  20. Home Depot. Two black guys, ambiguous woman, white guy
  21. General Motors. 8 out of 10 nonwhite
  22. Elevance Health. Black.
  23. JPMorgan Chase. Hispanic? A majority of the remainder of the homepage are nonwhites.
  24. Kroger. No photos, but 3 out of 4 of the cartoon characters are nonwhite.
  25. Centene. Black.
  26. Verizon. Nonwhite.
  27. Walgreens Boots Alliance. Well, not exactly a stock photo: they're announcing their new Chief Information Officer, a white guy. The next slide in the auto-rotating display is 5 nonwhite out of 7.
  28. Fannie Mae. Nonwhite.
  29. Comcast. 2 out of 3 nonwhite.
  30. AT&T. Asian, I think?

You get the idea.

The effect is so strong that at some point pictures of single young white urban men in advertising have become gay-coded. Usually if I see such an ad on my commute it's trying to sell me PrEP.

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