SeniorPhotosGoneTacky
September 11, 2004 2:12 PM   Subscribe

 
Who the hell takes their shirt off for their yearbook picture??
posted by PrinceValium at 2:20 PM on September 11, 2004


Oh, this is good.
posted by punishinglemur at 2:21 PM on September 11, 2004


Who the hell takes their shirt off for their yearbook picture??

These days, all the cool kids do. Hell, I took off my shirt for my driver license photo.
posted by sexymofo at 2:26 PM on September 11, 2004


*Blows the dust off yearbook and own senior photo*

*shudders*

Sooo glad I'm a couple decades past that and thankfully no-one remembers or cares. Whatever was I thinking?
posted by elendil71 at 2:27 PM on September 11, 2004


Oh, this is very, very good.
And it provides a well needed distraction from, well, you know.
thanks
posted by Busithoth at 2:29 PM on September 11, 2004


Football helmet on fire.

Football. Helmet. On. Fire.
posted by mmcg at 2:33 PM on September 11, 2004


People actually get their senior photos professionally taken? I think my senior photo was taken in my driveway with my sweet Mitsubishi Colt hatchback in the background.
posted by gyc at 2:38 PM on September 11, 2004


What are you talking about, mmcg? The flaming football helmet was wicked!
posted by Turtles all the way down at 2:39 PM on September 11, 2004


Football helmet on fire.
Sweeeeeet.

I didn't do this, or any of the senior stuff, but then again I'd already dropped out. At the time I thought the people who did the senior picture thing were dorks. More than ten years later, retribution is MINE!!!
posted by elwoodwiles at 2:44 PM on September 11, 2004


Don't like the black bars. It makes it feel to much like I'm looking at porn or something.
posted by willnot at 2:48 PM on September 11, 2004


Don't like the black bars. It makes it feel to much like I'm looking at porn or something.

What kind of porn you looking at?
posted by Busithoth at 2:49 PM on September 11, 2004


i never took senior pictures and i'm not in the yearbook, thank god. The best one I saw was a guy holding a soccer ball that was photoshopped to look like it was on fire. da-amn
posted by bob sarabia at 3:00 PM on September 11, 2004


okay, the football helmet on fire was cool, and as a pyro, I can definately come to understand it, but this makes me realize that I have no imagination.
posted by Busithoth at 3:04 PM on September 11, 2004


Wow. Those are... bad.
posted by rhapsodie at 3:04 PM on September 11, 2004


People actually get their senior photos professionally taken? I think my senior photo was taken in my driveway with my sweet Mitsubishi Colt hatchback in the background.

I was REQUIRED to get professionally done senior photos or else prove that I couldn't afford them.

Going to a school populated by rich kids can really suck sometimes.
posted by Stynxno at 3:12 PM on September 11, 2004


Ever curious about what Spike (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) looked like as a HS senior? Here ya go.

And what's with all the train track photos? Is this a generation of wannabe hobos-in-training?
posted by ChrisTN at 3:19 PM on September 11, 2004


Incredible.
posted by ColdChef at 3:27 PM on September 11, 2004


I'm soooo glad to be british and not have to go though the yearbook embarrassment! Or the popularity contests of prom nights for that matter.
posted by floanna at 3:44 PM on September 11, 2004


Freshmen at my university are asked to submit a photo for the freshman directory which is unofficially known as the Dogbook. Inevitably these would be senior pics. One of the rules when scoping out the females in the Dogbook was to notice whether they were leaning on a door frame or tree. If this was the case the were automatically docked two points. Ahh, I miss the days of forcing the freshmen to prank call random chicas from the Dogbook.

My senior photo is probably the best photo I have ever taken. I'm one of the lucky ones.
posted by sciurus at 4:07 PM on September 11, 2004


You can also check out the Hall of Douchebags over at Rock and Roll Confidential if you'd like to see terrible band photos.
posted by sciurus at 4:11 PM on September 11, 2004


And what's with all the train track photos?

Field trip!
posted by kirkaracha at 5:10 PM on September 11, 2004


You can also check out the Hall of Douchebags

The ubiquitous Brick Wall. Hilarious!
posted by Turtles all the way down at 5:22 PM on September 11, 2004


I was REQUIRED to get professionally done senior photos

Ditto. It was the only kind the yearbook would accept. Portraits were mandatory but the other crap was not, thank God. I opted out of all I could.

Incidentally, I think I recognize one of the people in those photos. Now I have something productive to do with my Saturday night...
posted by somethingotherthan at 5:43 PM on September 11, 2004


forget no child left behind. I will vote for the first candidate to promise to end high school yearbook photos.

Or enact peace with the Muslim world. Or give me health insurance. Or a big, big triple digit tax cut. Or show these yearbook photos every night during primetime.
posted by namespan at 7:10 PM on September 11, 2004


A couple of years ago I got this strange urge to dig out my middle and high school yearbooks and scan my photos. Gratuitous self-link.
posted by tippiedog at 7:17 PM on September 11, 2004


tippiedog: wtf dude, how did you get away looking so normal growing up? my pictures look like a science project.
posted by bob sarabia at 7:22 PM on September 11, 2004


I think the year I graduated was the last year my school required the senior boys to be photographed in a white tux. White jacket, anyway—the rest your normal black tuxedo. That's what we had to wear for graduation, too. The girls had to wear tasteful white dresses for their photo and for graduation, although the girls and the school administration did not always see eye to eye on the definition of tasteful.
/Student Life section editor of the yearbook two years in a row.
posted by emelenjr at 7:24 PM on September 11, 2004


My favourite was the one with the mask. If I were the artist I'd have called it Death Mask and Death Girl.

That and shirtless guy. Is there any way we can get enlargements of these?
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:34 PM on September 11, 2004


I almost pissed myself. Sweeeeeet.
I thought this was a joke at first. I can't believe they would allow those into a yearbook.
posted by aacheson at 9:23 PM on September 11, 2004


aacheson: I'm 38 now, back in college with a lot of 18 to 19-year-old kids. Based on what I see of these kids nowadays, I can believe it. Now if I could just get them to stay off my damn lawn! In MY day... (grumble grumble)
posted by AstroGuy at 9:29 PM on September 11, 2004


Wow, I had no idea that yearbook pictures were ever done in a style other than 'forced smile, while looking slightly to the left'
posted by mosch at 11:16 PM on September 11, 2004


ChrisTN wrote:
"Ever curious about what Spike (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) looked like as a HS senior?"

If you're still curious, here's the real thing.
posted by prolific at 1:24 AM on September 12, 2004


Excellent! [at first I thought this thread was going to be about AARP] My senior pic was the standard fare. I did, however, wear ray bans in the group honor society pic. 24 years ago. Wow.
posted by yoga at 5:17 AM on September 12, 2004


oh lawd, those were great, bwah...! you know, in a purely awful way.

Ever curious about what Spike (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) looked like as a HS senior?

If you're still curious, here's the real thing.

i can go one better, i've got spike's high school dance class photo
posted by t r a c y at 6:10 AM on September 12, 2004


Ouch...poofy, poofy, poofy James Marsters hair.
posted by ChrisTN at 6:38 AM on September 12, 2004


"Because when you think of basketball, you think of crime scenes and police tape." Now there's a T-shirt slogan for ya.

The black bar does for this what the blurry face does for "COPS" in that it points out which people should be ashamed of themselves for breathing. There's legal and ethical reasons for the black bar also, but I think it suitably adds an air of mystery to this display of juvenile excess and blatant ignorance to taste in the face of utter narcissism.

Back in my day, the staring slightly to the left or right and attempting to smile was the only pose for everyone, so the end result is a yearbook of blandness and a total removal of individuality, as if we'd each been pushed through a squeeze juicer and then stuffed by a taxidermist just before the cameras went off. Page after page of sameness, with the only occasional standout being people with noses larger than the rest of their face, or the occasional poofy hair by those true nonconformists.

It's probably a good thing too, because mine mighta looked something like this. I was spared the shame and indignity of my own shortsightedness and lack of shame and indignity in my youth.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:25 AM on September 12, 2004


So, really and truly: people1 have shirtless senior yearbook photos? *checks watch* Yep, I must be just about to turn forty freakin' years old. Incredible.

1 Okay, "boys", then. However, now that I think about it, I'm all for high school senior girls having topless yearbook photos. That'd make it worth living this long, definitely.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:23 AM on September 12, 2004


However, now that I think about it, I'm all for high school senior girls having topless yearbook photos. That'd make it worth living this long, definitely.

Sounds like a campaign platform to me. Ethereal Bligh for president!

They thought me foolish when I ran away to sea rather than go through high school, but who's laughing now, hmm? It is so worth a lifetime of underemployment to have avoided this sort of travesty.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:52 AM on September 12, 2004


Back in the day, when our HS yearbook was composed mechanically, a friend and I were poking around the empty classroom where the pages were being assembled in shallow bins, and accidently knocked 2 of them on the floor.

We did the best we could, but they were sophomores, and we lofty seniors didn't recognize half of them, never mind know their names ("Do you think this Chris is a guy or a girl?" - "Beats me."). When I get to that spread in my yearbook I still chuckle.
posted by jalexei at 10:24 AM on September 12, 2004


This link goes on the list with uglydress.com and the ugly wedding dress of the day. I love sites like these.
posted by kindle at 5:41 PM on September 12, 2004


Gotta say, I love my younger brother, but his senior photo could easily have made it in: he's standing under a tree, wearing (goofy-looking) sunglasses and holding his electric guitar like he's ready to rock. Or finally join a band. Or... I don't know, every time I look at it, I think, "who is this dude? oh yeah, my little brother". Poor kid, he'll never live it down, not even now that he's a bit older and married and stuff.
posted by elvolio at 6:18 PM on September 12, 2004


Our yearbook pictures were the standard posed headshots, but then again there were over 500 people in my graduating class, but at any rate there wasn't much space for tomfoolery, intentional or otherwise.

In the group shot in the gymnasium, I did make diohands for the camera as did several of my associates.
posted by jonmc at 7:35 PM on September 12, 2004


I never heard of anyone posing shirtless for their senior picture, way back in prehistoric times (okay, 1991) when I graduated high school!

Every other pic was taken at the school, but for our senior pics we had to go to a photo studio in Lockport and get them done on our own time. Most of the pics were your basic headshots, but the other poses were your basic sitting-in-the-big-wicker-chair pose, sitting-on-the-floor-leaning-on-a-giant-91 (or whatever year) pose, the standing-with-one-foot-on-a-stepladder pose, and the ever-popular arms-on-a-mirror-so-your-face-is-reflected-upside-down pose. Can't forget the cap-and-gown pose!
posted by SisterHavana at 2:54 PM on September 14, 2004


« Older Operation Ignore   |   Not another Name Generator!!!! Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments