About

Polite Lizard is a nickname given to a lizard in a short video clip wherein the reptile creature slowly approaches the camera while wearing what appears to be a smile on its face. Upon entering circulation in September 2018, the video of the lizard quickly went viral and became a subject of observational comedy on Twitter.

Origin

On September 20th, 2018, Twitter user @modokinatu posted the video of the lizard, gaining over 63,000 retweets and 200,000 likes (shown below). The video gained over 12 million views in five days.

Spread

Two days later, the tweet began seeing use as a reaction, as people paired the video of the lizard with various captions. For example, user @ImSuperDope_ paired it with the caption "When little kids see someone pull out a phone at a family function," gaining over 31,000 retweets and 121,000 likes (shown below, left). User @lordswank__ posted "when you open your closet and she sees all your hoodies," gaining over 23,000 retweets and 85,000 likes (shown below, right).

Other popular tweets include one by @_Maxdaughter, gaining 72,000 retweets and 232,000 likes (shown below, left) and another by @DynamiteBenji that gained over 61,000 retweets and 214,000 likes (shown below, right). The jokes were covered by Mashable.^[1]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References