Step aside, duck face: A TikToker is exposing the facial expression that is Gen Z's version of the cringey pose
- "Duck face" selfies are out of vogue. A TikToker is predicting what facial expression will trend next.
- The "scrunch face pose," where people wrinkle their noses and squint, is one popular expression.
Step aside, duck face. A new facial expression is in town — and could one day be just as outdated.
That's according to TikToker @strawberrymilkmob, who took to the platform to discuss the latest pose young people have popularized.
"You know how we always go through the phases of the faces every girl makes? This is what it is right now," she said in the video, proceeding to scrunch her nose and squint her eyes while flashing a smile.
Sometimes referred to by TikTokers as the "scrunch face pose," the facial expression emulates the same face you make if you smell something terrible but are also having a blast while taking a selfie.
The video, posted October 25, has over 1.1 million views and 123,000 likes.
Commenters on @strawberrymilkmob's video were quick to agree with the creator. One person called it the "I'm having so much fun" pose.
The pose, the TikTok creator explains, is essentially today's version of the duck face.
Duck face posing — where you pout your lips out like, well, a duck — fell out of favor in the mid-2010s and was replaced by the "fish gape." Fish gaping is marked by having one's mouth slightly open in a sort of model-like pose.
Now, Gen Zers have the scrunch face pose.
In 2020, Vox's Rebecca Jennings dubbed the scrunch face pose — among others that Gen Zers commonly do — "TikTok Face." One of the creators who popularized the scrunch face was Addison Rae, who often shares videos where she strikes the pose and accompanies it with a viral dance.
Jennings described the expressions as an "emote" rather than a "pose," depicting them as "tiny performances for the sake of comedy or cuteness, meant to add some extra flavor to a video."
Posing aside, Gen Zers have firmly established their takes on things like slang (their use of "out of pocket" is different than other generations, for example) and design (they replaced millennials' outdated or "cheugy" trends with their own decor).