Sam Hyde Straining

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About

Sam Hyde Straining is a widely shared image of internet comedian and content creator Sam Hyde in which he can be seen appearing to strain to the point where his face has turned red, with his glasses seemingly causing indentations on his temples and veins popping out of his head. The photo was originally shared by Hyde in late August 2023 as a reference to Liver King but was reposted to X and 4chan by people commenting on his looks. The photo also saw minor use as a reaction in image caption memes.

Origin

On August 20th, 2023, Sam Hyde took to his Instagram^[8] to post a heavily saturated photo of himself wearing glasses while appearing to strain his face, gathering over 49,000 likes in a day (seen below).

On August 21st, 2023, Sam Hyde took to X to post^[1] a photo of Liver King alongside a photo of himself with the caption, "Liver King pls unblock me your my hero!!!! 🦸‍♂️." The post came after various X users commented on Liver King's supposedly unhealthy and deteriorated appearance in August 2023.^[2]^[3]

Spread

Several internet users reshared Sam Hyde's photo to comment on his looks in subsequent days, with X user @mrnonplungable making a post^[4] on August 21st, 2023, that read, "looks like his stupid glasses are squeezing his skull," gathering over 12,000 likes in a day (seen below, left).

The post^[5] was then quoted by X user @evilvillain1231 that same day with the caption, "his hair is so unflattering in this pic that it genuinely makes me feel disgusted/angry. Like the shape relationships happening here are so bad that its activating some sort of autistic sensory revulsion in me," gathering over 5,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).

Also on August 21st, a 4chan^[6] user posted the image to /fit/ with the caption, "how do I achieve this body aesthetic?" (seen below).

On August 21st, X^[7] user @tradcatboy posted the image with the caption, "twink death is a terrifying thing," gathering over 7,000 likes in a day (seen below).

On August 21st, Redditor^[9] /u/thescientus posted the image of Sam Hyde to the Red Scare Podcast subreddit (/r/redscarepod), asking "What happened to this guys face/skull," gathering nearly 400 upvotes in a day (seen below).