ManningFace

Confirmed 484,616

Part of a series on Bait-and-switch Media. [View Related Entries]

About

ManningFace refers to a photograph of National Football League quarterback Peyton Manning wearing a black hood while kneeling on a football field, which is often linked in comment threads on Reddit as a bait-and-switch joke similar to the practice of rickrolling.

Origin

On January 10th, 2013, Manning was photographed wearing a hood while warming up during football practice for the Denver Broncos in Englewood, Colorado (shown below).^[1] Two days later, Redditor FusRoDah7 submitted the picture to the /r/nfl^[3] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 1,600 votes (91% upvoted) and 200 comments prior to being archived. In the comments, many Redditors mocked the size of Manning's forehead in the photo.

Spread

On February 4th, 2014, Redditor throwawayx505 submitted a post asking "What's up with this picture of Peyton Manning?" to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[5] to which Redditor livefreeordont replied with a link to the original /r/nfl thread. On September 4th, Redditor TobyTarazan asked about the origin of the photo on /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[7] to which Redditor Kijafa described it as a "bait and switch gag." The photo was subsequently added as "Manningface" on the /r/OutOfTheLoop Wiki.^[8] On November 2nd, a Redditor linked to the hooded photograph in a bait-and-switch post on the /r/nfl^[4] subreddit. On October 28th, 2015, Redditor Meistarr submitted a post titled "What is it about the skimask picture?" to /r/OutOfTheLoop, where Redditor kevler9oh replied that the picture circulated on /r/nfl due to "the sheer size of Manning's forehead."^[2] On November 30th, a close-up version of the photo was uploaded to Imgur,^[9] where it gained over 5.8 million views over the next 14 months.

On September 10th, 2016, several Redditors posted the photograph in the comments section of post about Manning on /r/funny.^[6] On December 20th, 2016, Redditors CountAardvark submitted a post to /r/MemeEconomy^[10] speculating that bait-and-switch memes like Manningface go through regular cycles of popularity.