Motorist's Intentionally Awkward Driver's License Photo Goes Viral

Jan. 17, 2014— -- It's the terrible ID photo that one man actually wants you to see.

Daniel Mundschau's purposefully awkward driver's license photo went viral on social news site Reddit for its depiction of the 37-year-old with shaved-in male pattern baldness, cross eyes and pulling his head back to create the illusion of a double chin.

When Mundschau's previous driver's license picturing him with a "cheesy grin" and wide eyes expired in 2011, the self-professed "prankster" said he wanted another "hilarious license."

He took to Facebook, crowd-sourcing his friends for ideas, some of which included hair-spraying his locks out to give him that freshly electrocuted look.

"I did talk to some police officers," Mundschau told ABC News today. "They said if I use a wig or makeup it might be considered illegal, that I was altering my appearance. So that's when we decided it had to be my own hair, but whatever we did after that goes."

After one month of un-checked hair growth, Mundschau had finally sprouted the raw canvas from which he would craft his luxurious sideburns and goatee. Then he mowed straight down the middle of his head to feign baldness and set off to the DMV.

Mundschau didn't expect to get away with the gag, so when he finally received the driver's license, he said he was more than delighted.

"It was like Christmas when it came in the mail," Mundschau wrote in the captions of the transformation photos he posted to Imgur.

Since he's had the license, Mundschau said he's been pulled over three times by police, but carried the photos around on his phone for months to help "keep him out of jail."

"The first police officer, he didn't bat an eye. It was surprising and disappointing," admitted Mundschau. "But the next two did give me a second look and they found it hilarious."

Only one person so far has taken the license seriously –- an employee at Walgreens who refused to sell Mundschau beer.

"Most checkout clerks just found it hilarious," Mundschau said. "I had two people I remember that asked me what I used to regrow my hair thinking I had actually gone bald."

Mundschau's creative self-photo styling has been well received by the Internet community after a friend convinced him to finally post the picture this year, but the phenomenon of altering your looks for an official government document picture is far from new.

Last August a Texas Tech student purportedly became the first American to successfully be authorized to wear a spaghetti strainer on his head for his driver's license photo. Eddie Castillo told DMV staff he needed to wear the strainer for religious reasons as a practicing "Pastafarian" and member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

In 2006, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles ordered two men to retake their license photos after the duo, one with bright red spray-painted skin and the other with spray-on hair and goofy false teeth, managed to obtain driver's licenses and posted video of their antics on YouTube.