Awkward White People Smile

About

Awkward White People Smile, known best as How White People Smile at You When You Pass Them on the Street, refers to a class picture of a young white boy who is pursing his lips. The image has been widely spread as a reaction image describing how white people smile in uncomfortable situations, but has seen other uses over the course of several years.

Origin

On October 2nd, 2015, Twitter user @rashadpls^[1] tweeted an image of a white boy with pursed lips with the caption, "this how white people smile at you when you pass them on the street," gaining over 8,200 retweets and 8,900 likes (shown below).

Spread

The image spread in similar variations over the following years, appearing in /r/meirl^[2] and on Tumblr, where a repost of the meme by lucifurby^[3] gained over 580,000 notes. While most reposts of the image used a "white people passing you on the street" caption, other popular posts with the face include an October 25th, 2018 Imgur post by cachem0n3y that gained over 2,100 points (shown below, left) and a Don't Say It meme posted to Reddit on November 15th by user BestVayneEU that gained 6,000 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References