What Is The 'My Honest Reaction' Meme And What Does This Catchphrase Even Mean?

For nearly a year now, social media has been fraught with people posting their "honest reactions" to everything, from jokes that needed more time in the cooker to hypothetical scenarios where people get on their case. The "honest reaction" memes vary widely in content, but the tone remains the same: the poster is thoroughly unimpressed by whatever they are "honestly reacting" to. Here, we'll walk through the growth of "my honest reaction" and explain how to use it.

What Does "My Honest Reaction" Mean?

"My honest reaction" sprung up in May of 2022, just a month after the similar meme my reaction to that information grew popular. Like its wordier sister meme, "my honest reaction" is frustratingly inscrutable, as it will often pair its titular caption with a bizarre GIF or image, making it unclear what the poster's "honest reaction" is meant to represent.

This inscrutability is the point. "My honest reaction" is meant to convey that the poster is completely unaffected by whatever they're responding to, whether that be a joke that falls flat or a hot take with no juice. The "honest reaction" poster simply will not give the offending poster the satisfaction of a clear reaction one way or the other. Instead, they're brushing off their conversational partner Don Draper-style, posting the meme equivalent of "I don't think about you (or in this case, what you just said) at all."

How Has "My Honest Reaction" Developed?

At its inception, "my honest reaction" was a vehicle for ironic and incomprehensible images and GIFs. That changed when it migrated to TikTok, where the meme would require a video component to get its message across. In a clever twist on the premise, users there made style reels of attractive male superstars like Robert Pattinson and Ryan Gosling as the centerpieces of "my honest reaction." Set to the song "Luxury" by Azealia Banks, the videos also added a hypothetical scenario to their captions, often involving a teacher or parent, given the youthfulness of TikTok's demographic.

"My honest reaction" is a meme with a low barrier of entry, and to make a solid example, all it takes is finding an image of a character or animal with a completely neutral expression, or if going the video route, finding a reel of a celebrity or character looking totally unbothered and perhaps a little too cool for school.

For more information, check out the Know Your Meme entry for my honest reaction.