It's graduation season! Is your #graduationphoto exactly the same as your parents' and grandparents'?
Chinese college graduates are here to show the world the appropriate way to freeze your memory of youth, from beginner's level to advanced. Now grab your pen.
A creative graduation photo made by students from the School of International Studies at Peking University.
Level 1: The Good Old Days
Creativity 🍒
Difficulty 🍳
Integrity 👑👑
At the beginner's level, all you have to do is pick a style from history that you and your friends like and wear it together. Renting a costume might cost you a little money, but it's hard to complain when you imagine how easy it will be to stand out.
Students at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong wearing Qipao, a typical style of women's clothing popular in the first half of the 20th century that has become an iconic Chinese dress.
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But since graduates are steadily upping their game, this might not be the best strategy to really stand out. So on to Level 2.
A group of students from the Aeronautics Department at Xiamen University, Fujian.
Level 2: The Imitation Game
Creativity 🍒🍒
Difficulty 🍳🍳
Integrity 👑👑👑
We all know that imitation can be the stepping stone to innovation. Simply get your friends to copy some movie scenes and voila, amazingness achieved.
Note that the tricky part is carrying it out accurately. If you can capture the mood, the subtle look, and even the slightest angle of the feet, then congratulations! You win.
Students from Shandong University copy the poster of a popular Chinese movie.
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The title of the right picture means "Agents of the Crazy," and the substitution for Marvel, MLGBD, is, umm, a kind of Chinese curse, basically similar to "Motherfucker" in English.
Level 3: Challenging Stereotypes
Creativity 🍒 🍒🍒
Difficulty 🍳
Integrity 👑👑👑
These guys said yes to the dress.
This is said to be a group of students from a university in Shandong Province.
Seven beautiful brides, one perfect veil.
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The ivory tower is supposed to be serious, right? But these guys decided to dress up like mafiosi — 24 dudes circling five women.
They are from Harbin Normal University, Heilongjiang Province, in the very northeast corner of China. The boys were reported to have said, "We will always be the protectors of our five princesses."
Level 4: Risky Business
Creativity 🍒🍒🍒
Difficulty 🍳🍳
Integrity 👑👑👑👑
"The higher the risk, the higher the return." These guys decided to go "pants-down." They're probably looking forward to the day when their kids ask, "Dad, what the hell were you doing at my age?"
This one was taken at Communication University of China, a first-class school in Beijing.
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Not totally clear what's going on here...
Level 5: Use What You Got
Creativity 🍒🍒🍒🍒
Difficulty 🍳🍳
Integrity 👑👑👑👑👑
Girls. Long hair. Pitch-black gowns. Classroom. We've all been there, but why has nobody else made use of these things to make a set of graduation horror pics? Creepy is not an issue here as long as you rock it on the last day of school.
These photos went crazy viral in China. Almost 25 million people have viewed them on Weibo since they were uploaded last week.
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Some tried to make them even scarier than they were. As one Weibo user said: "It's meaningless to take graduation photos like this. Be careful when you review them 10 years later, because you might find one more figure somewhere."
But who doesn't love the Walking Dead?
Level 6: The Magic of After-Production
Creativity 🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒
Difficulty 🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳
Integrity 👑👑👑👑👑
OMG
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Perfect.
Breathless.
And the winner goes to....
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