Whenever there’s a stock market crash, you can be sure that a bunch of newspapers are going to run cover photos of some broker with his hands on his face. There’s probably an interesting history to this cultural meme. I always figured that there was just a few stock photos that got recycled crash after crash. And what was the story of the actual individual in the photo? Did he lose his shirt in the market? Or perhaps he was rubbing his eyes in disbelief that he’d just made a killing? Or maybe it was allergies?

Turns out that someone has gathered a collection of photos of brokers with hands on their faces. A little gallows photo humor here.