Let the countdown begin!
Model: Licky Roxxx
Photographer: Rockee Lixxx
Children, you already know what eating too much candy does to your teeth, but do you know what snorting it does to your brain? It turns you into a fan of Jeffree Star’s music! So stay away from the stuff. It’s lethal. Try snorting peas and carrots instead.
Model: Dee Dee van Dollface
Photo: Cheesecake Bombshell Pin-Up Studios (accept no imitations)
“Oops, I pewped a leedle” face - be gone! We can’t wait until the hundreds of models and photographers who try to emulate Bettie Page and Irving Klaw begin to copy the next phase of the duo’s career, becoming born-again Christians and destroying all their work. Hurry up already!
Model: Ophelia Pain
Photographer: Mom
Back in the 90s, goths actually walked to the cemetery to do their weeping-by-the-tombstone pic. But you’ve evolved past your ancestors and their barbaric ways. You did a Google search on “graveyard” and found a great image on the first page of results for your new MySpace pic. It’s OK, we’ll pretend to believe your Photoshopping. Thx 4 the ADD.
Model: Pesticide
Photographer: Helium Holocaust
Caution! While some of you n00bs think Bathtub Angst is a phenomenon invented in the MySpace era, this isn’t the case. This form of expression has been around for hundreds of years and is well-documented. See Death of Marat. For more on this, consult “Displays of Angst: Goth PhotoCode, Clause 4.008.”
Model: Aviatrix Isobel auf der Aethertrope
Photo: Queefernaut Tintype Parlour
We all thought goggles on a top hat were a good look when we first saw it some years ago in that 4 Non Blondes video, but with the explorer aesthetic being in vogue, functionality comes into play. Uh oh, jettison the dirigible!
Yes, we make the funs! But not without earning our stripes. Zo’s certainly guilty of posing for shoots just like this, and we mean JUST like this, in her gothier, less discerning days. Oh, she’s posed in a cemetery with black feather wings (granted it was a real cemetery and she was actually there in person). She’s rolled around half naked in syrupy stage blood, firmly stuck to another model. She might have liked it. Mer will be the first to admit that she should probably seek psychiatric treatment for her compulsive hoarding of silly hats, goggles, and blimp paraphernalia, and we’ve all seen some of Nadya’s early photo-travesties. But it’s all in the past. Today we sigh into the smoky Angel City sky a silent wish - please, let the badness end here.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
And this is why Coilhouse is my homepage.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
hahahaha! so full of win. awesome work zoe and nadya.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
hahaha….. this made me laugh, then cry for being guilty of likine some of these cliches. If all these models are different…they look way to similar and should be their own cliche of models all lookoing the same, but if they are all 1 model (looks like Zoetica) then props… ’cause you fooled me!!!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
well said!
October 26th, 2007 at 12:07 am
I love you.
seriously.
You just decimated nearly every bad relationship I’ve EVER been in with only five photos.
I cried tears of AWESOME!
October 26th, 2007 at 12:14 am
So right on. Thats all I can think of to say im laughing so hard.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:25 am
We must laugh at ourselves! Kudos!
October 26th, 2007 at 1:42 am
The best part of this for me was the model and photographer names! Oh, hell, yeah!
October 26th, 2007 at 1:42 am
BRAVO!!
hahaha
Cliche #4 definitely needs to hung, gassed, buried, dug up then set on fire.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:43 am
I was about to suggest the “Angel in the Sewer”motif , but perhaps that’s more of an fine-art/illustration stand-by.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:46 am
bwhahahahha!!!
I’m so guilty of Bathtub Angst photos 5 years ago.
At least there was no fake blood…
/hangs head in shame
October 26th, 2007 at 2:19 am
Muwhahahah!
The Pin-Up one has been done to death (but I love those shoes to death).
October 26th, 2007 at 2:23 am
years from now, when my first-born seeks retribution for being named Queefernaut Tintype Parlour, i will be forced to point the child in your direction.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:54 am
Ahahahaaa!
Ah thank God, someone is paying attention!
Don’t suppose we can add Gothic Lolita to this list…
October 26th, 2007 at 3:03 am
Hehehe…hot damn you guys swung a sharp scalpel on this one :)
October 26th, 2007 at 3:45 am
oh good god, it’s too late at night to laugh like this… now I’m gonna be up all night.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:39 am
always good for a laugh; though i’m heavily guilty of most of those. i agree with another poster a few posts up.. Gothic Lolita needs to be added.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:58 am
This post is years worth of internet investigations! and so true…
I Hhadn’t recognised Zoetica in all pictures at first!
October 26th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Hah… that is totally hilarious. The only scary thing is that your photos are better quality than what is out there. teehee…. I think I am totally guilty of most of this stuff too!
October 26th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Hey…so like how can I add Dee Dee van Dollface to my MySpace? Is she single cuz if so I wanna ask her to the 14th Annual Hot Rods & Hot Dogs BBQ!!!
Oh man…seriously…Zo & Co. you’re all my new heroes for this lil article and pix.
Zo being all the models threw me for a loop… didn’t recognize her on first glance. Made the whole thing SO much better.
“This form of expression has been around for hundreds of years and is well-documented. See Death of Marat.”
THAT is piss your pants funny. Totally worth losing a good pair of pants to a line like that.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Seconding the addition of Gothic Lolita.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
This was golden!!! Thanks for the laugh!
October 26th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Dear lord- this is hilarious, especially the mock photos. This ought to be mandatory reading at alt-model school.
October 27th, 2007 at 12:02 am
I am guilty of a few of these :)
October 27th, 2007 at 1:13 am
you forgot another alt-photo staple:
Ophelia’s death
October 27th, 2007 at 6:11 am
Wow…
Your awesomeness has left me speechless. Good job.
October 27th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Ophelia’s death sort of falls into the bathtub suicide category… I’ve definitely seen a few Ophelia-themed Tub Angst shoots.
October 27th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Hilarious!
Even so, these genres are training grounds for the few good-to-come alternative babies out there, the post-post-post-post-post modern.
October 28th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Ouch! You just kicked me in the steampunk.
But hilarious images and LOVED the names!
October 29th, 2007 at 2:59 am
Ah yes - for the next installment in this series ‘Not yet another Alice in Wonderland-reference, please’ could merit looking into.
Great post, love this daily clickage/reading.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
You forgot “I gotz mhay periodz.”
October 29th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Frac - you remind me that I have to second Mer’s suggestion from last week. There NEEDS to be a girl on SG named “Tubby Suicide”
November 18th, 2007 at 2:49 am
Oh my god, Bathtub Suicide/Drowning/Ophelia could have been one. I’m guilty of that one myself.
December 4th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
LOL. i am guilty of quite a few of these, But i totally agree. :P
April 9th, 2008 at 7:25 am
HAHAHAHAHAH!!! PRICELESS!
– A ^_^
April 10th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Actually Death of Marat wasn’t suicide. He was a French revolutionary assassinated by Charlotte Corday.
Otherwise I agree with the article totally. :)
April 10th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
but….but, I LIKE the Goggles on top hat look [sniff :(]
My world is coming APART! LOL!
August 1st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
You realize that by killing 5 cliches, you’re asking for the birth of 5 more?
August 12th, 2008 at 11:14 am
The pinup spoof is one that definitely hits home. I’m a fan of pinups (new and old), but if there’s one thing that ruffles my feathers, it’s imitators. We need not see your blow-up doll visage with a bad Bettie wig or a blonde ‘do like Marilyn. There images are lost in mainstream Heaven; a woman who looks like a potato with wonky lips and blonde hair is JUST LIKE JAYNE MANSFIELD! Oh shiz!
August 15th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Oh sh*t, so funny! Thank “god” I haven’t committed any of these crimes!
August 21st, 2008 at 11:49 am
Oh, come on. It could be said that most things goth are all cliches. Now, I could tell you about very real people living very real psychological nightmares …
November 4th, 2008 at 12:50 am
This is a much older post, but thanks to the sidelines, Ive found an oldie but goodie! A good laugh, and I would say I am guilty of NONE of these, because I DID actually go to the cemetary for my “weeping-by-the-tombstone pic”. See myspace index for tombstone-bigger-than-me-with-my-5-inch-Munster-platform-boots.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:57 am
[...] Tesla’s birthday is (it’s July 10th). I had never thought to compile a list of the Top 5 Alt Photo Cliches that can be done without. I never would have known that the people behind Dr. Horrible (Joss Whedon [...]
January 1st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful. (I am late to find this posting as well but enjoy it no less.)
February 24th, 2009 at 9:53 am
all you need is the bathing in a bathtub of milk and/or blood and you’re all set!