Dean Norris' Reaction

About

Dean Norris' Reaction or Hank's Reaction refers to two contrasting photographs of actor Dean Norris in which he smiles in one and puts on a displeased, somewhat angry or serious expression in the other. In early April 2021, the photographs gained popularity online as a two-panel meme format, used to express joy about one thing and displeasure about another.

Origin

Prior to July 14th, 2014, photographer Marco Grob posted several photographs of actor Dean Norris, best known for his role as Hank Schrader in the television series Breaking Bad, to his website,^[1][2] including side-by-side photographs of Norris smiling and putting on an expression of displeasure, with the lighting used to enhance actor's emotions. On July 14th that year, Norris posted the photographs to his Twitter^[3] and Instagram,^[4] with the photographs being cropped in the Instagram post (Twitter post and non-cropped image shown below).

The images were later used in several articles about Norris and reposted by Breaking Bad fan pages, including a now-unavailable post by the Facebook group Best of Breaking Bad.

On April 13th, 2017, Instagram^[5] page breakinbadfeed posted the earliest known meme based on the images, a Pictures of People Before and After Calling Them Beautiful meme that gained over 10,000 likes in four years (shown below, left). The side-by-side image did not see further use in memes until mid-March 2021, when on March 17th Twitter^[6] user @Usmanlfc posted a football meme based on the photograph, making a joke about football club Atletico's performance (shown below, right). The post gained over 70 retweets and 1,400 likes in one month.

Spread

Prior to receiving a large surge in popularity in April 2021, the image was used by Redditor^[7] Slight_Highlight1929 in a meme about Boruto that received over 170 upvotes in nine days (shown below, left). On April 2nd, Twitter^[8] user @toaster_water posted the first viral tweet that used the format, captioning the image "Pooping: / Peeing:." The post received over 180 retweets and 1,400 likes in one week (shown below, right).

The post was widely circulated in the following days. For example, on April 5th, 2021, Redditor sub2techno reposted it to the /r/okbuddyretard^[9] subreddit, where it received over 1,500 upvotes in four days.

Following the viral spread of @toaster_water's post, the format gained a moderate presence online, particularly on Twitter and Reddit. For example, on April 5th, 2020, Twitter^[10] user @irsievan posted a posted a meme that gained over 3,900 retweets and 32,400 likes (shown below). On April 6th, 2021, Redditor sf9tBm remade the meme, with the post gaining over 21,100 upvotes on /r/okbuddyretard^[11] in three days.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References