Celebrating the Awkward School Photo Years

We can’t believe it took this long for someone to launch a website like this — AwkwardSchoolPictures.com, where “awkwardness is now in session.” Bad and funny school photos have been an integral part of our culture for decades, so why only now are we only getting a website for it? how long does it take to build a website anyway? Well judging from that article linked, longer than we thought it would. At least AwkwardSchoolPictures.com is finally here now, so let’s get onto the meat of the content it provides.

We’ve long been believers in the theory that an awkward phase in junior high or high school is seriously character developing — in fact, we’d be suspicious of anyone who enjoyed high school too much. Now we can all celebrate just how far we’ve come online.

Oh sure, yeah, it’s probably also a chance for you to make fun of other people’s awkward stages, but the website’s founders claim that their mail goal is to “provide users a chance to reclaim the most embarrassing times of their lives, but this time they’re in on the joke.” In other words, screw you bullies, I’m an internet meme and you’re just a washed up former high school football star retelling stories of the glory days. The site’s founders are determinedly anti-bully, in fact: “The nature of the website is to provide clean humor without being sarcastic or negative toward anyone; the website is moderated and will not post demeaning comments from random users.” So laugh with these people, not at them, please.

Our favorites are definitely the ones that come with letters from the star of the pics — like the above guy, who writes, “I loved artistic/colorful shirts in high school, and was trying to imitate a crazed intense stare (why not?)…but the cameraman told me to look slightly to the side instead of directly at the camera, which was the look I was trying for. Picture taken my junior year of high school in October, 1987. My first kiss wasn’t until college a few years later. Currently my hair is loose and long (as opposed to matted down with too much hair product as shown here), and I still keep that new-wave-y shirt in my closet for sentimental reasons although it doesn’t fit anymore.”

Read the rest of the post and see more photos at SUNfiltered