The 'Lobotomy-Chic' Aesthetic Is Taking Over Instagram
By : Pesala Bandara
Source : PetaPixel
In a year that has seen the rise of blurry photos and 0.5 selfies, there has also been a new pose taking over Instagram in 2022. Featuring a blank stare and lifeless rolled eyes: meet the lobotomy-chic aesthetic.
For over a decade, Instagram users posed with the signature “duck face” expression favored by the picture-perfect Kardashians, sucking in their cheeks and pursing their lips to create a playful pout.
However, according to a piece published by Rayne Fisher-Quann in i-D, the duck face pose has been dethroned in 2022.
In the last year, social media has instead been dominated by models adopting a lobotomy chic aesthetic, also known as the “dissociative pout.”
The dissociative pout has become the go-to-pose on Instagram and sees subjects “favoring pouty, puffed-out lips stretched into a disaffected frown” with “wide eyes… either captured mid-roll or aimed at the camera in a plaintive, lobotomy-chic stare.”
Fisher-Quann says the goal of the dissociative pout is “the performance of detachment” and to look as uninterested, apathetic, and numb as possible.