About

Waifu vs. Mommy Eyes is an exploitable format used in a series of memes showing an anime character, typically a girl, with so-called "waifu" eyes compared to the same character with "mommy" eyes, the waifu eyes being wide and innocent and the mommy eyes being more narrow and flirtatious. The original version of the meme was posted to X / Twitter by user @Zackir_7 in March 2025 and references The Legend of Zelda series. The meme format became increasingly popularized over the following months on X and Reddit as users applied new characters to each label, becoming notably prevalent among VTuber fans.

Origin

On March 13th, 2025, X^[1] user @Zackir_7 posted a meme showing the character Zelda from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with wide, innocent eyes on the top half next to the label "waifu" and Purah underneath next to the label "mommy eyes," suggesting Zelda is more "wife-material" and Purah is more promiscuous, garnering over 150,000 likes and 7,500 reposts in six months.

Spread

The meme inspired numerous variations over the following months. Most of these memes show a single character with both types of eyes, rather than comparing two different characters like the original.

On March 17th, 2025, Instagram^[2] user animesgirlsanime reposted the meme by @Zackir_7, garnering over 68,000 likes in six months.

On March 25th, X^[3] user @Viaprika posted a new version of the meme showing VTuber Via with both mommy and waifu eyes, garnering over 1,400 likes in six months.

On April 3rd, 2025, X^[4] user @MegalodonVT posted a version of the meme using VTuber Megalodon, garnering over 23,000 likes in five months.

On September 17th, Redditor u/eerie_canary posted a version of the meme to the /r/vtubers^[5] subreddit showing Eerie Canary with each set of eyes, garnering over 7,300 upvotes in just under two weeks.

On September 23rd, X^[6] user @_Melink_ posted a version of the meme comparing Vocaloid character Hatsune Miku with waifu eyes to Brazilian Miku with mommy eyes, garnering over 105,000 likes in six days.

On September 26th, 2025, X^[7] user @Osididit posted a similar version of the meme comparing Hatsune Miku to another Vocaloid character, Kasane Teto, garnering over 96,000 likes in three days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References