Why BIPOC and LGBTQ-Inclusive Stock Media Matters

Storyblocks has launched a new campaign that will bring BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) and LGBTQ+ folks to the forefront of stock footage.

The campaign, Re:Stock, recruited diverse filmmakers to create a series of collections, with 50 videos each, showcasing the lives of historically marginalized people.

Storyblocks, a competitor of Shutterstock, launched Re:Stock after acknowledging that BIPOC representation makes up only 5 percent of its current library. The new campaign aims to double Storyblocks' diverse content by 2021 and quadruple it by 2022.

Stock footage is essential to content creators; it appears in news footage, ads, and other video content. Expanding footage to portray, say, Black parents educating children, or queer couples spending the day with one another, has a ripple effect in representation across the media landscape.

"Stock media is often used to inject some representation of humanity into a project, but unfortunately the footage and photos we provide tend to oversimplify the human experience and perpetuate stereotypes," said Sydney Carlton, director of brand marketing at Storyblocks.

"Stock media providers should consider it their responsibility to provide representations of humanity that are as varied, layered, and complex as they actually exist in the world, and be one less barrier to proper representation in the media."

Learn more at Storyblocks.com. And see diverse stock clips from contributor Monica Rodman below and Boob Sweat Media above.