Side Eye Horse

Submission 19,472

Part of a series on Side Eye. [View Related Entries]

About

Side Eye Horse refers to a close-up wide-angle photograph of a brown horse side-eyeing the camera with one eye. Some mistook the horse for a cow side-eye. The reaction image trended on Twitter / X in mid-2024, amassing fan art and exploitable usage. Some likened the horse to the slang term "honse" (a misspelling of "horse"). The original image was posted to the Facebook group This horse was assembled INCORRECTLY in late 2023.

Origin

On September 21st, 2023, Facebook^[7] user Natalie Mamo shared horse pictures to the private group This horse was assembled INCORRECTLY, receiving over 1,500 reactions in 10 months (shown below).

One of the photos was taken with an iPhone's 0.5x zoom lens showing a brown horse giving the camera a side-eye look (shown below).

Spread

Currently, the earliest discovered repost of the Side Eye Horse photo was shared by X^[1] user @Loccdawggg on May 31st, 2024. The quote received 12 likes in two months. On June 1st, X^[2] user @KioshiWarrior used the photo in a tweet that read, "I got in an hour long debate with my brother about Spirited Away last night," gaining over 110 likes in a month (shown below, left).

More viral usage surfaced a month later in early July, starting with a tweet shared by X^[3] user @Loccdawggg on July 1st, that quoted a post reading, "this meatlovers pizza and grape jelly >>>" with "Together?" receiving over 105,000 likes in four days (shown below, right).

On July 2nd, 2024, Tumblr^[4] user themysteriousmurasamecastle posted the photo, writing, "this pic is unbelievable," receiving over 24,000 notes in three days (shown below, left). The post inspired fan art on the site, like a drawing shared by Tumblr^[5] user dead-clade-waltz on July 2nd (shown below, right).

The image also amassed fan art on X during the same timeframe. For instance, on July 4th, 2024, X^[6] user @ursiday posted a painting of the horse, captioned, "I literally cant stop thinking about this image I had to paint it," receiving over 87,000 likes in a day (shown below).