About

Fish-Mouth Syndrome is a slang term used to describe a seemingly common facial trait in social justice warriors and feminists where their upper lips settle abnormally high and their lower lips settle flat and low, causing their mouths to gape open at all times while somewhat resembling a fish. The slang term was started in April 2016 by influencer shoe0nhead and spread over the following years as a way to mock SJWs. It is similar to the term soy face although it tends to be more female-centric.

Origin

On April 11th, 2016, Twitter^[1] user and YouTuber shoe0nhead, known for her political commentary videos where she often takes anti-SJW stances, posted, "alright let's address the elephant in the room why do a good portion of sjw types have 'fishmouth' syndrome" offering images of feminists, including Big Red, as examples of the "syndrome" (shown below). The three feminists in the images have similar mouths with raised upper lips, flat lower lips and agape mouths showing their front teeth. The post gained over 4,000 likes and 1,400 retweets in five years.

The post inspired numerous comments offering additional examples of people exhibiting fish-mouth syndrome, as well as images of fish for comparison (examples shown below). Twitter^[4] user @sonicmeerkat commented an image of PC Principal from South Park, an exaggerated SJW character, writing "Trey and matt noticed that too…"

It's largely up to speculation why this appears to be a phenomenon. Some theorize that a lack of testosterone could cause the face shape. On October 27th, 2016, a now-deleted Redditor started a thread to discuss this topic on /r/Feministpassdenied,^[7] gaining over 275 upvotes and 19 comments in six months.

Spread

On May 12th, 2016, Urban Dictionary^[3] user IReallyDontLikeYou defined Fish-mouth Syndrome, gaining over 570 likes and becoming the top definition within roughly five years. The definition reads:

A prevalent facial defect found on SJWs and feminists where their mouths are permanently slunk down to the sides of their chin, thus giving the appearance of a retarded fish. These features are often accompanied with the standard privilege checker glasses, a huge honking nose that blows when triggered, and unfitting hair colors.

On April 16th, 2017, almost exactly a year after the original post, shoe0nhead commented on a Twitter^[2] post by Ian Miles Cheong showing another feminist exhibiting fish-mouth syndrome under the original (shown below).

The term started to become popularized on 4chan shortly after it was tweeted by shoe0nhead in posts making fun of SJWs. On December 4th, 2017, an anonymous user of 4chan's /pol/^[6] board posted, "reminder that this 'fish mouth' thing of the SJWs was discovered by us, and when they made PC Principal, they gave him this mouth" along with an image showing examples of fish-mouth comparing it to the mouth-breathing face (shown below).

On March 31st, 2020, Redditor TheAndredal posted a meme to /r/kotakuinaction2^[5] showing a number of feminists exhibiting the syndrome compared to an image of a Triggerfish, gaining over 190 upvotes in a year (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References