About

Ella Purnell's Eyes refers to memes about the size of actress Ella Purnell's eyes, which many perceive as larger than average. Memes about Purnell's eyes started going viral online as early as April 2024, with some of the earliest and most common memes comparing Purnell's eyes to those of the Woody Woodpecker character Splinter. Memes about her eyes continued to grow in prevalence throughout 2025 and subsequent years. Purnell is best known for her acting roles in the Fallout TV series and Yellowjackets, which both drove discourse about her eyes in the mid-2020s during their virality.

Origin

On July 17th, 2019, Tumblr^[1] user animoguls posted side-by-side images of Alita: Battle Angel, known for her big eyes, and actress Ella Purnell, writing, "Ella Purnell would be the perfect choice to play Alita with those impossibly large eyes of hers," garnering about 16 notes in seven years. This is the earliest known meme about her eyes.

Spread

On April 16th, 2024, X^[2] user @LoadComics quoted a post sharing an image of Purnell, posting an image of the character Splinter from Woody Woodpecker and writing, "Ela me lembra a lasquita do pica pau," which translates to share that the Purnell reminds them of Splinter, garnering over 9,000 likes in two years.

On April 25th, the Instagram^[3] page filme10 made a similar post comparing the two, garnering over 75,000 likes in two years.

On January 21st, 2025, the Horror Fiends Facebook^[4] page shared a meme that compares Purnell's eyes to an alien with oversized eyes from Men In Black, garnering over 16,000 reactions and 1,100 shares in a year.

On January 23rd, the Facebook^[5] page Fallout® posted a meme that mashes up a scene from Ted with a scene from Fallout to compare her eyes to Gollum's eyes, garnering over 15,000 likes in a year.

On September 23rd, 2025, TikToker^[6] @steviesailor posted a video captioned, "When I'm at the big eyes competition and Ella Purnell walks in," garnering over 5.5 million views in four months.

On January 4th, 2026, Redditor Chewie83 made a post to the /r/shittymoviedetails^[7] subreddit sharing images of Purnell and Alita: Battle Angel, writing, "The producers of Alita: Battle Angel (2019) could have saved $45,000,000 on anime eye CGI by simply casting Ella Purnell," garnering over 75,000 upvotes in about three weeks.

On January 10th, X^[8] user @creepydotorg stole and recreated the meme, garnering over 73,000 likes in about two weeks.

On January 27th, 2026, X^[9] user @dyingscribe posted an image of Purnell next to Splinter, garnering over 29,000 likes in two days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References