Embrace the Awkwardness

Awkward family pet photos. Yes, they’re ridiculous, but there’s an undeniable commonality of experience here. Cringe just a little as you laugh ‘cause there’s a little of us all in these funny photos.

The website–turned–book that delighted millions and made us feel less embarrassed of the gems in our own family albums has sprung a new offspring—an obvious one, according to Awkward Family Photo founders Mike Bender and Doug Chernak.

Awkward Family Pet Photos, the inevitable sibling to the bestselling original is, if possible, even more delightful, for adding to the questionable hair and down right bizarre sartorial choices is an array of pets that goes way beyond the usual suspects. Not only do you have the family dog and cats, but mice, a capybara, even something called a sugar glider.

“The different kinds of pets really blew us away. We were getting so many amazing submissions with pets in them we thought, ‘This is such an interesting world, it needs its own website, it needs its own universe to live in.’ The relationship between people and their pets is really rich,” says Bender.

It’s a project that, in the words of its founders, “is celebrating that devotion. We love our pets so much that it makes us do some funny things.” And funny the photos are.

On a daily basis the two are calling each other over saying, “you gotta see this one.” When asked about a photo they particularly love, the alien abduction photo (see right) is mentioned as being a favourite for being “so bizarre and amazing in its own absurdity.” The effort in set up, the concept made reality is a hallmark of many of the best shots. We asked if there’s a particular era that seems to be the most awkward (the mid 80s come to mind). Turns out where the pet photos are concerned we might be in a prime epoch at present. “They had an advantage in the 80s because the fashion was so awkward,” says Bender. “But with the pet photos a lot of the present day ones are pretty awkward. I think we’re going further and further in what we’ll do for our pets. We love the photos where the whole clan is posing and the dog is posing, whether they’re in a pyramid pose or a pile of whatever.”

Though according to Bender and Chernak, we left the golden age of awkwardness behind with the passing of the early 90s and those Vanilla Ice looks, we can count ourselves lucky to be living in a time period in which some pretty amazing family pet photos are being created. There may have been a heyday for ridiculous family photos but for pet photos it seems the awkwardness currently knows no bounds. Bender concurs: “We may be in the golden age now and we don’t even know it.”

Awkward Family Pet Photos 2, here we come.