Man Ripping Off His Face Painting
Part of a series on Reaction Images. [View Related Entries]
This entry contains content that may be considered sensitive to some viewers.
This submission is currently being researched & evaluated!
You can help confirm this entry by contributing facts, media, and other evidence of notability and mutation.
About
Man Ripping Off His Face Painting refers to the 2001 painting titled Face-Off by Chinese artist Xue Jiye, which depicts a naked man sitting on the floor tearing off his face with his hands and screaming. Online, the painting has been adopted as a reaction image, typically used to convey feelings of anguish, frustration and awkwardness.
Origin
In 2001, Chinese artist Xue Jiye painted Face-Off (originally untitled), an oil-on-canvas painting depicting a naked man sitting in a corner tearing his face off with his hands and screaming (seen below). On January 31st, 2021, Xue Jiye uploaded the painting to his official Instagram[1] account, garnering over 3,500 likes in roughly three years.
On September 18th, 2013, Tumblr[2] user Pixography posted the painting, with the post gaining over 2,400 likes and reblogs in 11 years.
On July 22nd, 2015, X[3] / Twitter user @nrlswirl used Face-Off, along with two other thematically similar paintings by Xue Jiye, in a caption meme, which is the earliest found use of the painting in a meme (shown below). The post gained just six retweets and 30 likes in nine years.
Spread
On October 8th, 2020, X[4] user @PainxPiss posted the earliest found viral meme using the picture, a How It Started / How It's Going meme that gained over 38,000 reposts and 210,000 likes in four years (shown below).
On December 4th, YouTuber Shoe0nHead used the image as a reaction to videos about actor Elliot Page's transition, with the post (shown below) gaining over 5,300 reposts and 94,000 likes on X[5] in four years.
On December 20th, 2020, Redditor boobioboobs combined the image with a snippet of a Bloomberg Wealth article about tax cuts for the rich. The post gained over 290 upvotes in the /r/catsaysmao[6] subreddit in four years and was widely circulated through reposts on X[7] and Tumblr.[8]
The image saw increased presence as a reaction and a caption format in 2024, with multiple posts based on it going viral on X / Twitter.
Various Examples
Template
Search Interest
External References
[2] Tumblr β pixography
[4] X β @PainxPiss
[5] X β @shoe0nhead
[6] Reddit β Oh really?
[7] X β @SocDoneLeft
Display Comments