Duck face
{{Short description|Type of facial expression}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2018}}
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,{{cite web|last1=Miller|first1=Sarah|title=Duck Hunting on the Internet|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/fashion/duckface-photos-on-facebook-draw-backlash.html?_r=0|work=The New York Times|date=25 May 2011}} but it can be ironic{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/the-scholarship-in-selfies.html|title=The Scholarship in Selfies|last=Pappano|first=Laura|work=The New York Times|date=31 July 2015|accessdate=1 August 2022}} or an attempt to hide self-conscious embarrassment.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/sunday-review/what-selfie-sticks-really-tell-us-about-ourselves.html|title=What Selfie Sticks Really Tell Us About Ourselves|last=Murphy|first=Kate|work=The New York Times|date=8 August 2015|accessdate=1 August 2022}}
History
Fashion models frequently use exaggerated pouts, and self-portraits with a pouty face go back to Rembrandt.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/style/selfies-instagram.html|title=It's Easy to Hate Selfies. But Can They Also Be a Force for Good?|last=Mervosh|first=Sarah|work=The New York Times|date=11 July 2019|accessdate=1 August 2022}} 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. 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.{{cite web|url=https://www.gq.com/story/blue-steel-zoolander-selfie-culture|title=How 'Blue Steel' Predicted Selfie Culture|last=Kring-Schreifels|first=Jake|work=GQ|date=29 September 2021|accessdate=1 August 2022}}
As social networks became popular, young women frequently made exaggeratedly pouty expressions. This became a major fad by the 2010s,{{cite web|url=https://i-d.co/article/dissociative-pout-selfie-nihilism/|title=The cult of the dissociative pout|last=Fisher-Quann|first=Rayne|work=Vice.com|date=4 May 2022|access-date=1 August 2022}} provoking a strong negative reaction among some viewers.
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.{{cite web|title=Oxford Dictionaries Adds 'Duck Face,' 'Man Crush' and 'Lolcat'|url=https://time.com/3617335/oxford-duck-face-lolcat/|publisher=Time|author=Steinmetz, Katy|date=3 December 2014}}{{cite news|title=Lolcat and duck face new words in Oxford Dictionaries online|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/30309944|publisher=BBC|date=4 December 2014}}
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.{{cite book|author1=Fragaszy, Dorothy M.|author2=Visalberghi, Elisabetta|author3=Fedigan, Linda M.|title=The Complete Capuchin: The Biology of the Genus Cebus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A6TmtS_qOwgC|date=21 June 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-66768-5|pages=203–204, 233}}{{cite journal|last1=Manson|first1=J. H.|last2=Perry|first2=S.|last3=Parish|first3=A. R.|title=Nonconceptive sexual behavior in bonobos and capuchins|journal=International Journal of Primatology|date=October 1997|volume=18|issue=5|pages=767–786|doi=10.1023/A:1026395829818|s2cid=3032455}}