About

Rare Physiognomies, or Rare Physiognomy, is a slang term used online to categorize photos of people with physiognomies and phenotypes that are uncommon in the modern day, according to some. This typically means people who look like they're from another time or era. Saying that someone looks like a peasant, caveman, ancient Greek or pilgrim are common comparisons that make up the Rare Physiognomies stereotype. Popular examples of Rare Physiognomies include Profoundly Mid Angloid Peasant Phenotype, "480 BC Genetics," which shows TikToker Alan Scheer, and a female TikToker who was called "colonial" and "fresh off the Mayflower." The term Rare Physiognomy originates from a quote-tweet about former Russian NBA player Andrei Kirilenko, nicknamed AK-47, who was said to have a "medieval face."

Origin

On February 13th, 2022, X^[1] user @DejaRu22 quote-tweeted a post about former Russian NBA player Andrei Kirilenko, nicknamed AK-47, writing, "Rare physiognomy. You don't see too many medieval faces anymore. Bro looks like he worked in the fields or maybe in the lower ranks within the castle." Over three years, the tweet received over 4,300 likes (shown below).

Spread

On April 2nd, 2022, Tumblr^[2] user britomart posted two screenshots from TikTok. One showed a woman, TikToker^[3] @ygdunlap, with the caption, "Someone told me today that I have a 'colonial face' and look like I'm 'fresh off the Mayflower.'" The other showed a man, TikToker^[4] @scheereddzz, with a comment reading, "480 BC genetics." Tumblr^[2] user britomart wrote, "Starting a collection," in the post's caption, gaining over 130,400 notes in three years (shown below).

On April 2nd, Tumblr^[5] user h3dgehogdilemma reblogged the post, attaching the screenshot of @DejaRu22's tweet.^[1]

On April 20th, 2022, Redditor juuudo shared the tweet screenshot to the /r/rareinsults ^[6] subreddit, captioning it, "I guess he managed to escape his class." Over three years, the post gained over 3,900 upvotes (shown below).

On July 27th, X^[7] user @Italian347 tweeted four memes showing Rare Physiognomies, adding the catchphrase I'm Assembling a Team as the caption. Over three years, the post gained over 179,000 likes (shown below).

On June 28th, 2023, X^[8] user @ShitpostRock quote-tweeted a series of photos of actor Zac Efron's look for the film The Iron Claw, captioning it with the original Rare Physiognomies caption. Over two years, the post gained over 550 likes (shown below).

On August 12th, 2025, X^[9] user @UpdatingOnRome copied the contents of X^[7] user @Italian347's tweet and captioned the images, "Rare physiognomies." The tweet received over 6,800 likes in three days.

On August 13th, X^[10] user @ShitpostRock quote-tweeted the aforementioned post, writing, "My personal favourite," concerning the Profoundly Mid Angloid Peasant Phenotype screenshot. The post gained over 20,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References