Duck face

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Demonstration of a duck face pose Amber'sDuckFace.jpg
Demonstration of a duck face pose

Duck face or duck lips is a photographic pose that first began in 1991 and is common on profile pictures in social networks. The lips are pressed together as in a pout and the cheeks are typically also sucked in. The pose is usually seen as an attempt to appear alluring, [1] but it can be ironic [2] or an attempt to hide self-conscious embarrassment. [3]

Contents

History

Fashion models frequently use exaggerated pouts, [1] and self-portraits with a pouty face go back to Rembrandt. [4] In the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral , one of the lead characters, Henrietta, played by Anna Chancellor, is nicknamed Duckface for her pouty expressions. [1] Ben Stiller mocked models' pouty expressions in 1996 comedy sketches and the 2001 feature film Zoolander . The silly expressions made by his narcissistic character have retroactively been identified as an example of duck face. [5] As social networks became popular, young women frequently made exaggeratedly pouty expressions. This became a major fad by the 2010s, [6] provoking a strong negative reaction among some viewers. [1]

OxfordDictionaries.com added "duck face" as a new word in 2014 to their list of current and modern words, but it has not been added to the Oxford English Dictionary . [7] [8]

In an animal communication studies of capuchin monkeys, the "duck face" term has been used synonymously with "protruded lip face", which females exhibit in the proceptive phase before mating. [9] [10]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Miller, Sarah (25 May 2011). "Duck Hunting on the Internet" . The New York Times . Retrieved 26 July 2025.
  2. Pappano, Laura (31 July 2015). "The Scholarship in Selfies" . The New York Times. Retrieved 26 July 2025.
  3. Murphy, Kate (8 August 2015). "What Selfie Sticks Really Tell Us About Ourselves". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  4. Mervosh, Sarah (11 July 2019). "It's Easy to Hate Selfies. But Can They Also Be a Force for Good?" . The New York Times. Retrieved 26 July 2025.
  5. Kring-Schreifels, Jake (29 September 2021). "How 'Blue Steel' Predicted Selfie Culture". GQ . Retrieved 26 July 2025.
  6. Fisher-Quann, Rayne (4 May 2022). "The cult of the dissociative pout". i-D . Retrieved 25 July 2025.
  7. Steinmetz, Katy (3 December 2014). "Oxford Dictionaries Adds 'Duck Face,' 'Man Crush' and 'Lolcat'". Time . Retrieved 26 July 2025.
  8. "Lolcat and duck face new words in Oxford Dictionaries online". Newsround . BBC. 4 December 2014. Retrieved 26 July 2025.
  9. Fragaszy, Dorothy M.; Visalberghi, Elisabetta; Fedigan, Linda M. (2004). The Complete Capuchin: The Biology of the Genus Cebus. Cambridge University Press. pp. 203–204, 233. ISBN   978-0521667685.
  10. Manson, J. H.; Perry, S.; Parish, A. R. (October 1997). "Nonconceptive sexual behavior in bonobos and capuchins". International Journal of Primatology . 18 (5): 767–786. doi:10.1023/A:1026395829818. S2CID   3032455.