Faces of Facebook: The Duck Face

In this series I will be looking at the "faces" you would see on Facebook, Myspace and other such social networking sites. These "faces" are the styles of photograph you often see on these sites that baffle people. Why have they done this? What is the purpose? Why that angle? Why that face?

You'll most likely know what I am talking about, but maybe not. Nonetheless, let's check out our first offender:

The Duck Face

This face consists of pouting of the lips. In and of itself it isn't that bad. Angelina Jolie seems to have her lips in a constant pout and people are fine with that.

No. No, this is no ordinary pout. This is pouting to the extreme.

This is the Duck Face

This, of course, is nothing new. Girls were most probably the first offenders. I have no idea why. It's not attractive and it definitely doesn't make you dignified. No one can do the Duck Face and retain any form of dignity.

So many people hate the Duck Face. They don't get it. And yet people continue to do it to this day. Just go on Facebook. Do it. Now look for that girl in your friend's list who wants to look hot. If you look in her album you will no doubt find a Duck Face. When I kept seeing this pop up on my News Feed I was certain it was only girls who did it. Heck, any celebrities seen doing it were all female, so it must only be them. Surely.

Then the guys started doing it:

I've tried as hard as I can to not put any photos on here of my friends. I think it would be remiss of me to do so and they would probably slap me. But they do it. Oh yes they do. It's upsetting to see the pictures of these people and realise they think it is meant to look sexy or something along those lines.

Maybe Zoolander is the cause of this all. I am sure that the Duck Face did not exist before this. But sadly, I am probably wrong. Nonetheless, the 2001 film used the Duck Face as a joke, that it is meant to look sexy but really doesn't. That was the whole thing about Zoolander: everything the character did was a mockery of the real fashion industry!

So it's quite industry how something that was mocking of those people who think they were sexy by pulling certain faces actually became a face that people thought they would pull to look sexy.

This face can bring out a syndrome so evident on the internet's social networking websites. It isn't a face in itself. It's the way someone depicts themselves in photos. And this is it:





One has to enquire: WHY?! Why does this happen? That when someone gets photos taken of them they always pull the same face. That every photo they are in looks like they weren't there, they were just photoshopped in.

Why!?

This face is also utilised in conjunction with three other techniques often used by people to increase their "hotness", or so one assumes:

1. Take the photo using a bathroom mirror (because you look sexy in the place where you crap).
2. Use a "gangsta" symbol for extra points.
3. Take the photo from a high angle (we'll be covering this later).

So, I ask you all: why does the Duck Face prevail? Very few people seem to like it, yet it still appears to show up everywhere. Where a girl may look pretty she is suddenly turned into Pete Burns. The popular website Anti Duckface has an entire archive full of silly looking people doing the Duck Face. If you still think it looks sexy then check this website out and tell me that this is so.

Please, ladies and gentlemen, stop this. It looks stupid, not sexy. If there is any way to turn someone off then just do the Duck Face