All over Facebook, girls with decent-looking faces have transformed into seemingly wild animals. It’s true; it’s called the duck face. I initially remember thinking the first duck face I saw in a picture was a joke. After a while, it was everywhere. Baffled, I wonder if this photographic phenomenon can even be explained. My best guess is that maybe, the duck face is the end result of an awful head injury that causes certain people to think they are more beautiful when making an atrocious facial expression.

Urbandictionary.com defines the term as, “A term used to describe the face made if you push your lips together in a combination of a pout and a pucker, giving the impression you have larger cheekbones and bigger lips.”

A duck face-making girl will instantly suck her cheeks in and push her lips as far out as she can as if the camera has a magnetic pull to the girls lips whilst holding the camera at an arm’s length. They think it is cute, but to me it is a complete mystery.

The duck face makes young women seem as if they have had lip injections or Botox of some kind. Those girls that make the duck face seem to make it their “thing”, sporting it in every picture at a bar, party or even just sitting alone in their bedroom.

If this trend continues thirty years from now people will look back at pictures and see people making the duck face. This is not something that our generation should put down in the history books. If you are a victim of such photographic crimes, do the viewing world a favor and just stop. Right now, just stop and go get help. In the past ten years, you have survived SARS, mad cow disease and swine flu. If we all work together, this outbreak of the duck face will no longer afflict young women of our society and we can look back at the history we are making today and instead put our best faces forward.

Published in The Chicago Flame September 12, 2010