Millennials are fully claiming responsibility for the emergence of the “duckface” pose in photos. Duckface, best described as the pose popularized back in the 2000s that saw everyone sucking in their lips and then pushing them out in a pout (like a duck’s beak) somehow became the go-to pose when taking pictures. And now, Millennials are trying to figure out how (and why) they made it a thing.
On a Reddit forum of Millennials, member AdSpecialist6598 shared: “Going through some old photos I had forgotten how many of the girls did duckface. It is crazy how often it happened and why was it ever a thing?”
The prompt got Millennials reminiscing about their days serving duckface, and contemplating why they did it in the first place. Here are 19 hilarious responses from Millennials dissecting the ‘duckface’ trend, and why it remains a go-to pose today.
Where the trend actually came from
“It’s a quick way to make your cheekbones look sharper and your face slimmer It’s been used in modeling years before it became an online phenomenon. There’s a reason they made fun of it in Zoolander, it just wasn’t known as duckface at the time. When done subtly it can look nice.” – yosayoran
“I feel like the Olsen twins popularized this.” – SpinachTroubles
“YES! People who weren’t part of this generation always miss this. We are the ultimate irony generation and while lots of people did this earnestly, there was this pressure to not take yourself too seriously online because it would have been seen as cringey.” – ferriswheel41
“Kind of makes sense. I remember my second year teaching out of college, kids were sucking shot glasses to make their lips bigger. Felt like duckface was our early Xanga / MySpace tamer version of that.” – aceituna_garden
“Especially since millennials were the first generation to have cameras in our hands 24/7 with an immediate way to publicly view/share photos! It’s a lot easier to take one goofy photo than it is to take 100 photos trying to look a certain way, and then staring until they all look terrible and so you don’t post anything lol.” –boinkbeepboop
The self-conscious side of it
“I think a lot of the time, making a dumb or a silly face in a picture on purpose prevents looking dumb or silly on accident. It’s like a preemptive defense against hurting your own feelings lol.” – boinkbeepboop
“I firmly believe it’s because they thought their face was ugly. Like ‘I’ll purposely make a weird face, then no one can tell how ugly I am’ obviously mental bs that most teenage girls go through.” – No-Function223
“If i take a selfie i still do it. not as often as i used too but it was more of a self conscious issue. my teeth are/were really messed up. we couldn’t afford braces and i was heavily bullied over it. i’m in braces now as an adult but I’m not sure i’ll ever get comfortable with it.” – AntGroundbreaking102
“We were awkward. The ability to take constant pictures of ourselves was brand new to me and I never knew how to hold my face. So that and a lot of way too wide open fake excited face for me in my youth. I’m sure there are other reasons but this was mine lol.” – whateverwhatis
“Years ago I was taking a picture of a girl where I worked. She kept making the duck face, and I kept telling her to stop and to just smile. It took a good 10-15 minutes to finally get a good smile out of her. At the time, it was just second nature for girls.” – concernedfriend08822
“It’s how girls tried to edit features of themselves before phones did it for you.” – asexyzombie
They thought it was cute, and honestly still do
“It was supposed to be a cute and sexy attention grab thing, and despite the meme potential, tbh SOME (!) people did it well I guess? I only knew the over the top meme pics everyone joked about, but most of the time it was a more subtle ‘smoochy’ face, at least where I came from. Like just puckering up slightly.” –bubuplush
“We thought we were so cute.” – badnewsbets
“Because smiling for a picture was trying too hard and it was cooler to look ironic and silly.” – kittymommameowmeow
“Still happening but with copious amounts lip filler so less effort from the duck is needed.” – Pristine_Charity4435
“It was and I quote ‘Cute and quirky’.” – KaioKenshin
“NGL, I still love it.” – Prudent-Hovercraft35
“Yep. Made the lips pouty and cheek bones protrude. Now people use FaceTune and use filler and, in the case of influencers and celebrities with the financial means, plastic surgery like buccal fat removal, chin and cheek implants. Your more everyday person uses filler (cheaper) and they often get that pillowy look.” – doesitspread
“Now girls just inject their lips and cheeks to make the same face with less effort! We’ve come a long way.” – ConsciousParable
Maybe it was never that deep
The truth is, it’s probably a combination: a little bit of insecurity, a little bit of irony, a little bit of copying whatever the Olsen twins or the models in magazines were doing. Nobody had one single reason, they were just teenagers figuring out how to exist in front of a camera for the first time, and duckface happened to be the shortcut everyone landed on at once. Twenty years later, it’s less embarrassing and more just… funny.
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
