The Longest Shortest Time

EPISODE #43: It’s Like She Knows Us

If you’ve been tuned into parenting media at all in the last month, you’ve probably seen Sara Given’s hilarious Tumblr It’s Like They Know Us, skewering stock photos of family life (turns out most of them include a white couch or a salad!) But did you know that the whole project started in our non-judgy Facebook group for moms? In this episode, Sara and I talk about how a little inside joke went viral pretty much overnight, and turned a middle school orchestra teacher into an internet sensation. Here’s a sneak peek into how it all went down.

It’s Like They Know Us was created by Sara Given, but the woman who started the whole making-fun-of-stock-photos idea that inspired Sara is Danielle Robinson, an active member of our Facebook group. Late at night on September 12, Danielle was browsing a pumping bra website, and was shocked to come across the picture below. She quickly shared it with the group. Here’s her post:

Sara loved the concept of finding unrealistic pictures of motherhood, so she immediately went digging. She started posting the most ridiculous ones she could find to the thread, along with captions that were cracking up the other moms. Other moms followed her lead. Someone said that the thread would make an awesome Tumblr, and Sara volunteered to start it. She launched It’s Like They Know Us that night and invited the moms to contribute new photos and captions to the blog.

Here are some of my favorites:

Pretty soon, Sara was all over parenting websites. And she was interviewed on Sunrise Australia (Australia’s version of the TODAY show) and the actual TODAY show.

We are thrilled for Sara’s success and pleased that we could provide a forum where a fabulous project like this could originate. Hooray for Sara and Danielle, and all of the other hilarious women who contributed to the start of It’s Like They Know Us. You can submit your own ridiculous stock photos and captions to Sara through her Tumblr. You can even write new captions for pictures that are already posted!

Listen to this episode to find out what Sara thinks would happen if all stock photos were realistic!

Real Life Stock Photos
Sara sent me a couple pictures of what magazine photos of her real life would look like. I wrote It’s Like They Know Us-style captions for them:

And here are a couple of mine:

Now it’s YOUR turn!
Post pictures from your family’s real life, along with a snarky caption, to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #RealStockPhotos and we may feature you on our blog! Follow us on Twitter at @longestshortest and on Instagram at @longestshortesttime.

Photo of my daughter’s first birthday: Richard Frank