Question

No, not lolcats. And I'm not really looking for a specific site, either.

I have often wished that I had some funny picture to illustrate a presentation, a website, a post, an email, or something else. Google image search and stock photo services have hardly ever helped me, although that may be because I'm doing something wrong.

Jeff Atwood seems to have no problem to find funny pictures for his codinghorror and stackoverflow blogs, as well as for the error messages on the trilogy sites. One of my favourites was this elephant. Other bloggers also seem to be quite good at it.

I'm wondering if I simply lack the creativity or if there's sources or methods I don't know about. I could think of the following ways to get pictures, but I'm not sure whether this is really "how they do it".

• keep a collection of pictures that you stumbled upon and liked (takes quite some time to build up to a proper library), when you need a picture, there's one in there
• maybe have pictures on paper, too, like from magazines or ads.
• when you are looking for a picture, search online (Flickr, Google, stock photos). This has never really worked for me, I don't know why.
• produce the pictures yourself, i. e. have a good library of source material or find some online and apply some creativity and suitable software. I could imagine that this could work well once you have the practice.

Answer 1

The best method: sign up with StumbleUpon.com and install the toolbar. Set your preference to humor related categories. SU is the best, when it comes to find quality content of your taste. But beware, it's very very addictive.

There are other blog sites(typical Tumblr blogs) that metablog most current funny photos. Here's a list that I frequent:

http://www.9gag.com

http://urban-ronin.com/

http://thedw.us/

http://theduty.tumblr.com/

http://thedw.us/

http://thisisindexed.com/

http://www.saturdaybulletin.com/

These blogs often link to sites they metablog from, and you can discover even more from there.

All that said, let me warn you. Looking for funny pictures on the internet can lead to long term addiction, trust me, I know. You'll be hopping from one site to the next, and share them with your buddy on aim, Skype, Twitter etc. Eventually you'll start your own Tumblr to meta blog these even further.... and next thing you know, you're going to bed at 4am every night.

The end.

Answer 2

If you aren't aware, there is the funny and pics subreddit on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/ http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/

Funny isn't usually pictures but it is pretty good.

Have an interest? There's a subreddit for that!

Answer 3

Your best best for generic (i.e. Work Safe) images that are mildly humorous is going to be to try and look through which stock photography sites have tagged as humor. The catch is that most of them are selling images; however, you might have an easier time finding what you are looking for because of that.

ShutterStock - Humor Stock Photos

iStockPhoto - Humor

Also, if you see yourself needing to use humorous images in the future, it might be a good idea to keep a folder of anything that catches your eye and just save them for later use.

Answer 4

Nobody mentioned b3ta yet? OK, so it's not for everyone, but I think that there is something for everyone. Ranging from the smug, the in-joke and the pure silly, to the clever, hilarious, satirical, daring, ... It's frequently NSFW, or NSFanything, and the quality can vary. But it is often a source of what you're looking for, and it's users/contributors have been responsible for plenty of those "have you seen this yet?" internet buzzes.

Answer 5

Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but VERY funny!

http://failblog.org/

Also a stock image site will have lots of (funny and not funny) images at a small price per image or a subscription.

Answer 6

Today its not only LOL Cats, but all kinds of funy pics: http://icanhascheezburger.com/ Go through the blue bar at the top for different categories. LOLZ!

Answer 7

I think 4chan has a lot of funny pictures.

Warning: NSFW images could also be found there.