1. Draft of the Final Slides

2. Introduction of the Work

This project examines how stock image platforms construct the visual idea of an “ideal lifestyle.” Using ideal lifestyle as a keyword, I searched iStock and analysed the first 100 results, looking at who appears in the images, where they are placed, and which identities repeat.

The images present a narrow, commercially packaged version of happiness: mostly young white women, soft lighting, beaches or nature, and relaxed, effortless poses. These scenes feel less like real life and more like a market-friendly fantasy. After classifying the images by people, setting, and diversity, I found that the visual patterns were highly predictable, with little representation of different ages, races, or ways of living.

I also conducted a smile-frequency analysis to see which professions are “allowed” to smile. Workers such as factory labourers rarely appear happy, while office workers are often shown smiling brightly. This suggests that stock images link happiness to certain kinds of labour and exclude others from the visual imagination of an ideal life.

Building on this, I connected these visual patterns to the capitalist loop of labour and rest. Scenes of leisure—vacations, morning light, coffee by the window—tend to hide the reality that rest has become something we must purchase after being exhausted by work. In this sense, the “ideal lifestyle” is not about real happiness but a narrative that supports the cycle of labour and consumption.

Through this project, I reflect on how visual culture shapes our understanding of what a “good life” looks like, and why that imagination remains so limited.

3. Draft of the Final Work

4. Final Work