Resurgent Economy Due to Depressed Stockbroker Clipart Sales

The economy, widely reported to be just fine now, has an unlikely hero: Exceptionally brisk sales of stockbrokers in various states of anguish and despair.

“We cleared six billion in revenue last year alone on them,” said John Yamura, President of Vancouver-based stock photography company E.Stock Images. As a result of the success of E.Stock, and similar firms, Canada’s economy has now recovered well into post-recession levels on non-recessionness.

Demand for the photos was both massive and continuous throughout the third and and fourth quarters of 2008, with photos of stockbrokers in near-suicidal states of misery and hysteria gracing the cover and inside pages of nearly every print media imaginable.

“The market might blow, but that doesn’t mean people want to look at graphs,” said Alan Moss, professor of media studies at York University. “Whether it’s the sight of a man who looks like he has just lost his children in an underground casino, the bloodthirsty panic of a sea of failing humanity, or just a never-ending series of facepalms, unhappy stockbroker photos are what people want to see in times of economic crisis.”

Yamura agreed with this assessment, with the addendum that “Photos of stockbrokers pushing their eyes into their skulls as their phone receivers twist in a dead wind off the end of their desks, their certain doom awaiting them at the other end of the line,” are also amongst the firm’s most popular.

“These are the only photos of stockbrokers we carry,” said Yamura. “They’re the only kind anyone ever wants.”

At one point, E.Stock ran out of image rights to sell to clients, and had to start building composites from other company materials. “We made one out of a picture of a vest-wearing construction worker with sinus problems, and pasted him in front of a picture of a gas station with one of those digital signs,” said Yamura. “Nobody even noticed.”