Cobrasnaking

Dorigen,

Please explain cobrasnaking in detail, including recommended posing tips and visual examples.

Work. I’m forreals in need of some tried and true practices to make me look cute in photos. I am tired of the busted nonsense that I have to untag on Facebook, because everybody and their mother has a camera phone and feels the need to share.

Emily

Emily,

The Cobrasnake is a website run by some dude named Mark Hunter, who looks kind of douchey and caused a buzz with his site a few years ago.

He basically goes to bars and parties and takes pictures of drunk hipsters posing. I shamefacedly include myself in the sea of said posing hipsters (see above). He spawned a bunch of copycats and along with the party sites and the style blogs, it seemed like you couldn’t leave the house without finding young people dressed up, posing and taking pictures of each other. Much ridicule and backlash ensued:

Typical Cobrasnake poses are done in dark bars, holding drinks, preferably cans of PBR. Poses are sexy and dead-eyed and flashy clothes are worn. Wacky props are always helpful.

Women are frequently in various states of undress and often use their hair pulled across their face to make a moustache. Bonus points are given if you somehow are able to pose with Chloe Sevigny or celebrity DJ Steve Aoki.