Family photo website makes awkward sublimely hilarious

Few websites can compete with the hilarity of fmylife.com and textsfromlastnight.com, but somehow the picture proof of unfortunate situations and families that these websites cannot offer is what places awkwardfamilyphotos.com ahead of the curve.

When entering the website the first text encountered, besides the title, is a sub-header, which reads, "Spreading the Awkwardness." The line itself is what makes the website so funny – the mortification and shame is communal. The website was created on a whim by two friends with an awkward family photo, who decided to share it with a world that has plenty of awkward photos themselves.

While viewing the website, I constantly found myself laughing out loud and I think anyone with a sense of humor, or a family, would do the same. Some of the photos are just plain outrageous, like an office Christmas photo with five uncooperative employees and a boss all clustered around Santa (that it is extremely hard to relate to.) The only option is to laugh out of pure excitement at the fact that someone, somewhere had to suffer through the humiliation.

Many of the photos display poor, forsaken children dressed up, paraded in front of a camera, or forced into strange formations so that there is photo proof of a lovely childhood and adolescence. In other cases, there are photographs that border on the insane, or in some cases, accidentally incestuous. Yes, at one point it seemed like a good idea to photograph a rare father-daughter kiss, but later down the line the realization will hit that an unmoving photo capture of the moment is creepy.

A thought to consider when looking at the website and comparing it to its interweb counterparts is that this stuff cannot be made up. Sure, the texts from last night are unmatched in their comedic relief, but think about it, people can make that stuff up. What's stopping a person from just creating the most inappropriate conversations and sentences and posting them as "texts from last night"? The same goes for fmylife.com, where the stories and happenings from people's lives give others the will to continue on in their not so horrible day-to-day lives.

Just like other reality websites, awkwardfamilyphotos.com has a selection of categories to choose from when wanting to view awkward photos. The categories include such titles as pregnancy, random awkwardness and also an AFP (awkward family photos) Hall of Fame. Awkwardfamilyphotos.com has branched off to include awkward family stories, as well as awkward family pets, and if someone especially loves this website, which not even I am that obsessed with, the website advertises for an "Awkward Family Photos" book.

My main complaint of the site is I can only appreciate five awkward photos at a time before I have to click to the next page and wait, and wait for the next page. I want to giggle and laugh at 10, or 15 or 20 awkward photos at a time!

From now on, instead of visiting the hilarious, but somewhat unbelievable websites that feature text messages and life stories, I am going to click on over to the website with the gift of showing the visitor exactly how bad a situation or a time in someone's life was instead of resorting to flat, unimaginative words.