WTF is resting bitchface? Remember back in the day when you simply turned to face the camera to smile and that was that? All you could hope for was that your roll of film stayed intact and that you didn’t come out with your eyes closed in every photo. Not anymore. Now since the selfie has made it way too easy to pose for ourselves and actually see what we look like before sharing it with anyone, the art of practicing putting on face and attitude is at an all-time high.
Celebrities are the ultimate experts on face trends, the skill of posing and holding their face expressions in place for the flashing cameras. Think Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, and Victoria Beckham, who know exactly how to play up the drama and the allure in the spotlight. And though we have learned to pose very well and which is our better side, there are still those moments when we are caught off-guard with our Resting Bitch Face on. You know, like when you’re thinking hard about something or perhaps when you’re not thinking about anything at all. And even though you may be at ease, those around you interpret this deadpan look of yours, with a slight downward turn of the lips, as angry, irritated or simply … bitchy. Ugh. As women, do we really need to smile all the time? The good news is no. But instead of being caught with your Resting Bitch Face on, you can try the Trout Pout, the Duck Face or the currently trendy and easy to do Fish Gape for your next photo opp.
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It seems the celebrities of today are more playful with face trends on the red carpet and on social media than ever before. The psychologist Dr. Becky Spelman told the Daily Mail “For a long time, the fear of giving too much of the artist’s personality away on this public platform kept a relatively narrow set of rules; stand like this, keep your face like this etc. However, the development of the social media generation, and particularly the rise and rise of the selfie, has seen these rules be widened, as this next generation are far more used to exposing their personalities through playing around on camera. The duck face was widely used, but as with many things in life reached a saturation point.”
What exactly was the duck face? According to Cosmopolitan, the duck face—with its pursed lips and sucked in cheeks—is truly over.
In many ways, its precursor was the model pout of the 90s that Cindy Crawford did so well and that Ben Stiller absolutely nailed in Blue Steel. Then there was the trout pout of the 90s as well, aka “fish lips.” It was so popular it even got into the Oxford Dictionary as: “The result of aggressive augmentation of the lips with filler.”
So what is this new fish gape that everyone and their mother is using on the red carpet and on Instagram? Think Keira Knightly and Kim Kardashian. It’s that open-mouthed, slightly toothy look, like you are about to say something totally brilliant or totally hot. It’s the cooler, more flattering replacement for the duck face. And it’s the celebrity attempt to naturally draw one’s cheeks in and keep the chin down which is oh so flattering. Go ahead, whip out your camera and give it your best fishy pucker.
