Have you ever been dancing in a nightclub, partying it up with your #squad, and generally having the time of your life, only to be touched on the shoulder by one of them and delicately asked, “What’s wrong with your face?”
No amount of reassurance that you are, in fact, having a marvellous time (or were until you realised what your expression was doing without your permission) will persuade your friends otherwise.
You are the owner of one Resting Bitch Face (RBF), and no amount of subsequent smiling is going to change that.
But now, women of the miserable dormant face variety may have some validation when you attempt to defend your sullen appearance.
Why does my face look like this? Science, that’s why.
Because researchers Abbe Macbeth and Jason Rogers have studied the phenomenon and they believe that it’s a real thing, according to Throwing Shade: The Science of Resting Bitch Face.
A team of researchers, partnered with Noldus Information Technology, have created a facial recognition tool to analyse different facial emotions. Taking celebrities sufferers of RBF like Kristin Stewart, Victoria Beckham, and Kanye (though arguably Yeezy’s face is just as bitchy when it’s stopped resting), they ran a series of images through a Face Reader to determine whether they have a ‘facial phenotype’.
In layman’s terms: an individual’s observable traits, like height, eye colour, or blood type.
In other words, a real thing. Not just a made up internet word from 2013. But an actual, unavoidable feature.
So, what did the study uncover?
Well, after scanning the faces through a sophisticated tool to register emotional expression, it showed that while emotions like anger, sadness, and fear were extremely variable, one feeling continued to crop up time and time again. That emotion was contempt.
So why do people see this disdain in what us RBF-ers claim to be our normal, neutral – if a little unfortunate – facial expressions? Well, according to the behavioural scientists behind the study, things like pulled back lips or a slight squint in the eye were read as contempt in the subjects.
“It’s kind of a tightening around the eyes, and a little bit of raising of the corners of the lips – but not into a smile,” said Abbe Macbeth.
For comparison the team used a control group of ‘passive’ faces – with celebrities like Jennifer Aniston – and found that they had about 97 per cent neutrality. The remaining three per cent were subtle hints of other emotions.
But the Resting Bitch Face victims – the Queen Elizabeths, Simon Cowells, and Anna Kendricks of the world – have double the amount of trace emotions, and most of that 6 per cent is expressed as contempt.
So while you may claim to simply have a case of RBF, it could mean that your unintentional sneer is registering contempt, whether you realise it or not.
Celebs who had bored or irritated looks were showing underlying levels of negative emotion more than those who aren’t afflicted by RBF.
And it’s important to note that a lot of those used in the study are actors. So with all their powers of disguise and illusion, if they still can’t hide their contempt, is it any wonder if the average Joe can’t either?
Or should that be the average Jane? It’s mostly women in the study – which isn’t too surprising – as it’s often women who are told to smile more and to turn that frown upside down.
So if it’s not just misogyny, and our faces are actually betraying contemptuous emotions even if we’re unaware of it, maybe we should just smile a little more?
Or maybe when you spot an RBF at ten paces it’s you who ought to get your sh*t together. Because perhaps it’s you who’s the object of their scorn…
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