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Daniela Araujo
A wrong angle, a fall, tantrums, eccentric outfits, or trends that still make us laugh years later—who doesn't have a photo in their family album that makes them cringe? A website compiles these moments and the stories that, by their own choice, thousands want to share. Their name, Awkward Family Photos (Awkward Family Photos) or AFP, it's self-explanatory.
Its creators, Doug Chernack and Mike Bender, met during “the most awkward time of life: high school” when they both lived in New Jersey, Bender tells Clarion by video call. Several years later, the two friends and writers met again in Los Angeles.
It was 2009, Facebook was relatively new, Instagram didn't yet exist, and the concept of a viral phenomenon was still in its infancy. Bender explains that the genesis of AFP occurred during a weekend visit to his parents' house. His mother posted a photo of him, his brother, and his father posing ballerina-style. Rockettes.
“I was probably 12 or 13 when that photo was taken and I remember feeling really embarrassed because people were coming down the slope and staring at us. I couldn't understand why my mom wanted to immortalize that moment. in particular, why he chose THAT photo,” he says.
The image struck the young screenwriter with an idea: this couldn't just happen to him. "The next week I was having lunch with Doug, and I told him this, and he said, 'Oh my God, yes! My house is full of those kinds of photos.' We were both sitting there and we said, 'Well, if we have them, everyone must have photos like that somewhere. How about we start a website where we post these photos and...'" We invite people to send in their most awkward and embarrassing family photos. "what do they have?" And that's how it all began."
The “whole” of Bender and Chernack It started with a WordPress page and now encompasses a 12-year-old franchise., a community with over a million followers on Instagram, 12,000 subscribers on YouTube, the creation of books with Random House, calendars, greeting cards, board games, and even a traveling photography exhibition throughout the United States and Canada.
The AFP team includes other members, all working remotely, who are responsible for receiving the material and processing the licenses for the selected photographs.
The idea caught on immediately when several radio stations added the link to their websites, "a few weeks later we had more than a million visits, we got a call from the New York Times, from Time magazine. Suddenly we're not only receiving photos from the United States, but from other parts of the world, it's a universal concept, we all have families, we all take photos and We all have awkward moments with family“,” says Bender.
Awkward Family Photos It became a collaborative space where thousands of strangers not only contribute their most embarrassing—and hilarious—family memories, but also narrate the aesthetics of an era.
“A friend told me I should send my baby picture because all my friends were thinking it was the best, apparently it became a 'meme', I find everything hilarious,” she says. Clarion Film and television makeup artist Jennifer Kaminski (40), who shared a childhood photo on the page.
Another user, Samantha (35), an American health worker, agrees with Kaminski. “I decided to send it to AFP because it’s such an epic photo from the early 90s: the bright colors, our makeup…” My mom still thinks to this day that we look adorable, but we look like 60-year-old women.My little sister and I always crack up about how terrible that photo is, but it’s a really terrible one.”
According to its co-creator, The page receives an average of 50 to 100 applications daily and accumulate more than a million photos submitted from social media, their email inbox, or the website. Not all qualify for the selection; the criteria are based on two factors: surprise and the story behind the image. In general, their subjects add details that provide context to the photos, and while many were previously afraid of "going viral," today many find it entertaining.
“We are very careful, We do not publish anything unless we have written consent from the person appearing in the photo. And if someone writes to us and says, 'I sent you this photo, I posted it, but my family member doesn't like it anymore' or 'it's getting more attention than we thought,' then we take it down. We're not in the business of trying to put anyone down, the idea is to poke fun at ourselves a little.“,” says Bender.
Maintaining an active online community where humor, not mockery, prevails is no easy task, but according to its creators, "maintaining the tone" was one of the pillars of their idea. "What we both really wanted was to laugh with people, not at them," says Bender.
This spirit seems to be the key to the franchise's success a decade later. "I think the tone is such that people want to send their photos, It's almost cathartic, it's like saying: 'Oh, do you think your family is weird? Look at this!' “That is the spirit and what makes us proud of the site.”
Her users agree. “I think my photo is really funny, and if it makes someone else laugh, then I'm happy I sent it,” Samantha adds.
The case of Brooks Decker (40), an artist and mother who shared her young son's terror during a photo shoot with Santa Claus, also drew thousands of laughs. "My son is a handsome 18-year-old now, and he loved being on the page. Of course, I talked to him about it beforehand. I love that AFP is an opportunity to laugh at ourselves because we all have something that could be sent," she replies.
The route of Awkward Family Photos It has few limitations and, at times, seems like a creative laboratory, even including the release of coloring books. But Bender and Chernack's biggest foray was an exhibition of their 220 best photos, which has been presented for eight years at various venues in the United States and Canada. The most recent exhibition was in October at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Bender says, “We started it because we see it as an art form, a study of these families. It would be so much fun to take her to Argentina.The hardest part is transporting all the material and all that, but we would love to take it to other countries.”
These snapshots aren't just entertaining; they can also reflect family dynamics. This prompted the creation of a documentary pilot of the franchise's name, directed by William Kirkley, which was selected at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and featured the award-winning Argentine photographer Irina Werning.
The episode, which the creators hope will be the first in a television documentary series, focuses on the story behind one of the families and culminates with the recreation of the original photo with its members; one of Werning's specialties, the backbone of her “Back to the Future” (2011) project, and the reason she was brought in when they filmed the pilot in Canada in 2019.
“Mike contacted me. They sent me one of their books and said they'd love to recreate some of the photos,” Werning explains to Clarín from Buenos Aires. For “Back to the Future,” Werning traveled to 47 countries and recreated nearly 600 photographs, sometimes producing dozens at a time to travel through a country where the subjects resided in record time.
The photojournalist, who won the World Press Photo in the “Stories” category in 2021 For “Pelilargas” —another of his projects—, he recreated the most memorable portrait of Awkward Family Photos: A photo taken in a studio showing the Izumi family. The surprise? The father, mother, and eldest daughter appear together, while the youngest son, Koichiro, sits on a stool, somewhat distant from the rest.
Werning recounts that, like so many other times, he went to the Once neighborhood. In a week, he created all the props needed to rework the scene. A challenge that included a crucial chair for the photo. The chair, where the father sat in the original shot, would remain empty this time; Mr. Izumi died years before filming.
Did you hesitate to replace him with another similar person? “No,” Werning answers without hesitation, “not really, it was very symbolic“That’s why I made the chair.”
Thus, between nostalgia, the complicated relationship between two brothers, and a family mystery, the story of the Canadian family is woven for fifteen minutes. "I study these photos, and they're like an onion. You peel back layers and layers and you keep discovering things, but even so, it leaves many questions unanswered," Werning says in the documentary.
A funny pose, a costume that didn't turn out as expected, a story that some would rather forget, or a focus error, Awkward Family Photos defends the joy of shared embarrassment and shows that we are all a little weird.
"The page is great for laughing and brings back a lot of memories, sometimes even through the photos other people post. You know you're not alone, that you're not the only person who has awkward photos of themselves from when they were younger, we are all in the same boat“,” says Kaminski.
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Edition No.: 9764, December 28, 2022
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