Awkward family photos are like a rite of passage for pretty much all of us. Like, did you really have a normal childhood without a trip to a photo studio with your family, only to walk out with something super weird that’s totally getting sent to all the relatives come holiday time?
In this list, people shared those strange pics (intentional or not) that they decided to share on Instagram . If anything, they’re making my family photos feel a little more normal.
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“My daughter would not stop crying until she got her own cone of shame.”
I wonder if she understood the concept of a “cone of shame,” or if she just really wanted to act in solidarity with the dog. Either way, this is an instant classic.
“Dad didn’t have much luck in the arm wrestling circuit, but he has high hopes for his boy.”
Nothing like an ultra confusing perspective to turn a relatively normal family pic into something super weird. But hey, with an arm like that, the kid really could have a promising arm wrestling career.
“We just wanted a nice family photo.”
This shows that, no matter how much you want something, you still might not get it. The funniest part is that, even without the dogs in the foreground, this still would’ve been an awkward photo.
“As a child, I would dress up as a clown whenever there was a reason to celebrate – in this case the birth of my younger brother.”
You might judge, but you probably had a weird tradition as a kid, too. Maybe not as weird as dressing up as a clown to celebrate a sibling’s birth, but still.
“I was just trying to peel my daughter off of me, sit her on the bench and then I was running to get out of the picture.”
“However it looks like I have left my children with their sitter and am running away for dear life!”
That photographer knew exactly what they were doing and I love it.
“This old picture of my great-grandmother, far left, makes it look like the cameraman just stumbled into a secret meeting of the grandmas.”
This is giving the same energy as that one picture of Bigfoot from the ’70s . Mysterious, vaguely sinister, and totally unreal.
“Here is my sister Jan’s graduation photo in 1968 at 18, and a redo that we did in 2014 at 64.”
You know, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to recreate the majesty of the hair in the first pic. A true product of its time.
“I was 45 minutes into family pictures with two hungry and crabby kiddos.”
“The photographer asked me five times if I really wanted to buy the pics and I said absolutely yes. This was my most popular Christmas picture ever.”
“This pic is my mom, dad, brother, sister and her husband, me and my demonic-looking son. This family portrait was taken in the ’80s…we were really a scary crew.”
I’ve never seen Rosemary’s Baby , but if you told me this was a still from the movie, I’d believe it.
“My dad used to swing me around in a tiny garbage can and it was so much fun.”
“I didn’t know it was weird until I asked around and found out that no one else’s dads swung them around in garbage cans.”
Nah, it’s a totally normal family activity!
“We were having a great time at my wedding.”
Sometimes, you need a little bit of a break. Even during one of the happiest days of your life (which probably took a lot of preparation). Not the memory you’d want to keep, but still.
“The moment my eldest met her new baby sister.”
This might be the universal facial expression of any young kid who’s just met their even younger sibling for the first time. I’m sure these kids ended up being friendlier eventually.
“This is my only college graduation picture.”
In a weird way, this is kind of the perfect graduation photo. It really encapsulates the amount of work and stress it took to get there, which ends with you quite literally losing your head.
“I asked my parents to do a family photo with me and this was the end result. I’m a very festive person.”
At this point, I’m sort of convinced that the best Christmas pics are the ones with a random goth in them. That’s comedy right there.
“This beaut of my uncle, aunt and cousins was proudly displayed in their home for years.”
I guess you could say that his family was always on his mind.
Okay but seriously, I actually wish I had a weird family pic like this.
“This is of my older sister, perfect in all pictures, and older brother’s gigantically chubby head.”
“The photographer thought this was the best picture of the whole shoot. My mom thought it was hilarious and horrifying, so of course she bought it.”
Without seeing any of the other pictures of the shoot, I completely believe the photographer.
“This is my husband and four children.”
“We asked the kids to sit down with Dad to get their pictures together, but my daughter didn’t want to be in the picture, so we said, ‘Okay, just stay over there.’ I started to take the picture and she got even more upset for being left OUT of the picture. As you can see my husband was also annoyed!”
“This was my Senior Picture and my mom thought it would be a great idea to pose with some of my Cabbage Patch collection of dolls.”
“For some reason, I decided to go with the SULTRY look. The rest is history as you can see!!!”
You literally can’t make this kind of stuff up.
“I very much enjoyed being tucked into a bag and carried around by my Dad.”
As funny as the dad carrying his kid in a bag is, I can’t help but look at that dog. I think he might be having a bit of FOMO there.
“My Aunt and Uncle were crowned ‘golden couple’ at our local fair for being the longest married couple in the county at 72 years. Our local paper did a fantastic arrangement for the honor…”
They were probably the cool aunt and uncle growing up…
