Laughing Without Smiling

Submission 1,007

Part of a series on Internet Challenges. [View Related Entries]

About

Laughing Without Smiling refers to the act of laughing with a straight face or while expressing an emotion other than happiness. Videos of people laughing without smiling have been uploaded online since as early as 2007, resulting in several viral examples throughout the 2000s. In October 2023, a video of a girl laughing without smiling went viral on TikTok, inspiring a challenge where TikTokers laugh without smiling in front of others and film their reactions.

Origin

The earliest known video of a person laughing without smiling was uploaded to YouTube^[1] by lookatrubbish on August 17th, 2007, consisting of a sketch where one man shocks another by laughing without smiling, garnering over 4.2 million views in 16 years (shown below).

Spread

Videos of people laughing without smiling continued to go viral over the following years. On February 1st, 2008, YouTuber^[2] The Vault of Hubris uploaded a video of a man laughing without smiling, garnering over 2.2 million views in 15 years (shown below, left). The video was posted to /r/videos^[3] and reported on by HuffPost^[4] on April 12th, 2013, garnering over 2,100 upvotes in 10 years. On July 24th, YouTuber^[5] Funny Awesome Pets uploaded a video of an unknown Vine user following the trend, garnering over 1.4 million views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On September 18th, 2014, YouTuber^[6] CHSupercuts posted a compilation video of Vine users laughing without smiling, garnering over 1.2 million views in nine years (shown below). The video was shared on BuzzFeed^[7] that day.

Throughout the 2020s, numerous videos of people laughing without smiling were posted to TikTok. For example, on October 27th, 2022, TikToker^[8] @itzslicenrice posted a video laughing as hard as possible without smiling, garnering over 5.8 million views in a year (shown below, left). On April 7th, 2023, TikToker^[9] @pierson posted a video where she asks several people to laugh without smiling, garnering over 3.5 million views in six months (shown below, right).

2023 Girl Laughing Without Smiling / "Laughing Without Smiling" TikTok Challenge

On October 22nd, 2023, TikToker^[10] @user720900457 posted a video of a girl laughing without smiling while staring directly into the camera, garnering over 39 million views in four days (shown below).

Over the following days, other TikTokers began posting videos where they laugh without smiling in front of people to get their reactions. On October 24th, TikToker^[11] @toyaandnesha posted a video doing the trend, garnering over 24 million views in two days (shown below, left). On October 25th, TikToker^[12] @aileenchristineee posted a video where numerous people attempt to laugh without smiling, garnering over 529,000 views in a day (shown below, right).

On the same day, TikToker^[13] @xandnae posted a video filming his wife's reaction to him laughing without smiling, garnering over 4.2 million views in under 24 hours (shown below).