About
Women Laughing Alone With Salad is a stock photo cliché and single topic blog devoted to collecting instances in stock photography where women are pictured laughing and eating or holding salad. The cliché has become a popular and humorous criticism of the depiction of women in media.
Origin
The first collection of photos of was created by blogger Edith Zimmerman on January 3rd, 2011, on the feminist blog The Hairpin. The post was titled “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” and featured 18 photos illustrating the trend with no accompanying text. As of September 2015, the post has been shared on Facebook over 206,000 times and on Twitter 15,400 times, and it has 730 comments.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Two photos from the original 18
h2. Spread
Reflecting the viral impact of “Women Laughing Alone with Salad,” several other variations on the theme surfaced in the following months, most notably “Men Laughing Alone with Fruit Salad,” “Women Proud Of Their Two Apples,” “Women Resisting Delicious Cakes and Pies” and “Women Struggling to Drink Water.” The trend of men or women doing awkward things in stock photography was covered by various online communities and publications, such as 4chan[7], Reddit[4], The Huffington Post[3], UpRoxx[2], The Daily What[5] and The Hairpin.[6] In addition, a Tumblr single-topic blog titled Women Laughing Alone With Salad was created the same day as the original Hairpin post, and has continued to post through 2015.[8]
On September 7th, 2015, the Wooly Mammoth Theater in Washington premiered the play Women Laughing Alone With Salad. Written by Sheila Callaghan, the play was based on the photo series of the same name, originally featured on the blog the Hairpin. Callaghan told the Washington Post that “Nobody likes salad that much; it’s not built for that. And the notion that you’re supposed to feel that way -- [salad] will never be that kind of satisfying.” The play depicted three female leads discussing these types of false emotional standards, and used over 6,000 pieces of prop lettuce. It was set to run until October 4th, 2015.[9]
Notable Examples
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Search Interest
External References
[1]The Hairpin – Women Laughing Alone With Salad
[2]UpRoxx – Women Struggling to Drink Water is the New Women Laughing Alone With Salad
[3]The Huffington Post – Women Struggling To Drink Water
[4]Reddit – Women struggling to drink water
[5]The Daily What – Morning Links
[6]The Hairpin – Women Struggling to Drink Water
[7]4chanarchive – Men Laughing Alone with Fruit Salad
[8]Tumblr – Women Laughing Alone With Salad
[9]Washington Post – Women Laughing Alone With Salad goes from meme to world-premiere play
[10]Wooly Mammoth Theather Company – Women Laughing Alone with Salad
The Meme, The Myth, The Legend