Duck face

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]

Demonstration of a duck face pose

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

• Duckwalk
• Gurn
• Lip augmentation

References

1. 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.