The Ultimate POV: Why Memes Can’t Stop Making Eyes At Us

The reasons that people use memes are as numerous as the ways in which we communicate. Whether they’re delivering a message, providing a humorous distraction or some mixture of the two, the one thing that unites them is the ability to reach us in a personal way.

Often, this comes in the form of the sometimes elusive but sought-after relatability factor. However, there are even simpler methods with which to capture our attention — all it requires is the involvement of body language.

For image-based memes, there’s no easier way to do this than by making some eye contact. There's been a crop of memes in recent months that have used this to great effect. These have come in many forms, such as Staring Donkey, which takes a front-facing symmetrical edit of the beloved Shrek character and uses it to an amusing, yet deliberately unsettling effect.

This element of mild discomfort has been continued in memes like the Homophobic Dog, whose offensive opinions on gay people have captured the imaginations of many. Unlike the blank stare of his famous contemporary, he reels in the viewer with a knowing glance, as if just about to overshare an unwanted opinion at a dinner party. Similarly, though, we are a captive audience.

The tactic hasn’t just been found in standalone formats either. It’s enjoyed some of its most dominant successes through its involvement in the broad church of POV memes. They directly involve us in whatever action the meme portrays, no matter how random, unlikely or unwanted — whether they offer an ironic joke or reach for something genuine, producing aspirational levels of cringe either way.

The phenomenon has extended across mediums too. The POV is perhaps one of the most popular TikTok formats, near-ubiquitous on the majority of FYPs as a way of placing the viewer in whatever punchline or story the creator desires.

So dominant is the acronym that it suffers a lot of misuse in terms of understanding its meaning. The key element that unites all areas of POV TikTok, though, is that the viewer is always involved in the drama with plenty of addressing the camera.

@flossybaby #wafflehouse ♬ original sound – jay

These are only some of the most recent examples to crop up; it has seemed like memes that meet our eyes have been over the past couple of years. Much like some more recent formats, there have been numerous examples that are animal-based.

This was most prominently seen in things like the early wave of Staring Animals, who initially made their mark as reaction images. Their blank-eyed stares were the perfect foil for non-sequitur humor, but they were also useful in their ability to express disapproval at the subject of their gaze. It’s no coincidence that they are alternately known as The Council.

Even more confrontational was something like Jesse Pointing A Gun, which made no such allusions when the individual viewing the meme was turned into the target of an imaginary battle that they are on the losing side of.

Meanwhile, a format like "How Does It Feel To Be The Meme For Once?" and its flipped image doubling back on the viewer take the pastime of meme consumption to a whole new meta-level. Needless to say, this wasn’t content to feel comfortable with.

Catching our eye has become all about creating an extra intensity that alternates between cringe and fight or flight.
While the wave of memes that have captured the eye in more recent years might be more in your face, their gaze is a tactic that has been used liberally by numerous formats that have set a precedent before them.

Numerous Advice Animals confirmed their place in internet history through addressing us by sight and in some cases, pioneering the toolkit for the personality-based POV obsession that dominates TikTok humor today (e.g. Scumbag Steve, Overly Attached Girlfriend and Actual Advice Mallard, to name a few that ranged in purpose from helpful to worrying).

Eye contact is also the key in more developed memes that became timeless classics, ranging from Pepe to Doge. Part of the formula to their recognizability and popularity coming from the fact that they seem to share a moment with the meme consumer that transcends words, creating a rapport that aids their memorability and creates sympathy for any message they may carry.

In contrast to their descendants, this older school of memes interacted like this as more of an unthinking engagement tactic. The feeling is more of camaraderie than judgment — unless the character is meant to be an uncomfortable one.
The persistence with which memes that use this quirk gain popularity is not a complete accident. In part, they find success in the way that they flip the script. No longer simply the consumer of the content, we become inadvertent participants, even if we don’t provide our own take on it.

For many, having an online presence today is a tricky balance in performing sides of ourselves that we may not be able to express in the same way in real life. At the same time, there is often an attempt to maintain a distance from those that watch this happen. Memes that involve us in the most basic, but personal of ways in terms of eye contact acknowledge how easily that barrier is broken, presuming (often correctly) that this makes them more impactful.

There are few simpler yet more powerful things that we can do as human beings than engage the power of our sight. Eyes aren’t just the "window to the soul," they’re a sure-fire way of capturing our attention on a screen in an environment that provides no shortage of distractions.

We spend our time on social media constantly being addressed, but not always in a way so obviously primal. Something as simple as a look immediately develops an immediate and deep connection, which can seem sorely lacking in the cynical, transactional version of the internet that is being created in front of us today.