About

Are You Serious Face, also known as "Seriously?", is a black and white drawing of a perplexed looking man or woman that is often used in rage comics. It is generally used as a reaction to overwhelming ignorance or stupidity.

Origin

The original male version of the face was based off a scene where David Silverman of American Atheists makes a perplexed expression during a debate with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. During the exchange O'Reilly uses the "tide goes in, tide goes out" argument for the existence of God that is also the origin of You Can't Explain That image macros. The face is made at about 2:00 into the clip:

O'Reilly: I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.

Silverman: Tide goes in, tide goes out?”

O'Reilly: The water, the tide--it comes in and it goes out. It always goes in, then it goes out. … You can’t explain that. You can’t explain it.

On January 18th, 2011, a Reddit thread titled "Do your worst :) (FIXED)" linked to a black and white drawing of the expression that would later be used in rage comics as the "are you serious?" face.^[1]

Female Version

The first female version of the face was posted to Reddit on February 17, 2011.^[2] It went through several revisions collaboratively within Reddit before settling on the final version used today. An image showing the evolution of the female version was posted on February 19, 2011.^[3]

American Atheists Sticker

On June 27th, 2011, the blog The Friendly Atheist^[6] posted that David Silverman had placed a large sticker of the rage face on the front door of the American Atheists office in Cranford, New Jersey.

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External References