Same Face Syndrome

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About

Same Face Syndrome refers to a tendency of certain artists to draw their characters with the same faces instead of experimenting with diversity in their facial features. Discussions about Same Face Syndrome grew more prominent after the release of Disney's Frozen in 2013, with many viewers commenting on the similarities between the film's two leads and Rapunzel from Disney's Tangled. The art in various animes and games like Genshin Impact has also been accused of having Same Face Syndrome. The Sims players often comment on their tendency to create Sims with Same Face Syndrome as well.

Origin

Some early mentions of "Same Face Syndrome" can be found on messageboards from 2011^[1]^[2] with a definition being posted to Urban Dictionary^[3] on February 24th, 2013 by charleychibi that read, "An artist who has Same Face Syndrome repeatedly draws the same face on every character they draw" (seen below).

Same Face Syndrome An artist who has Same Face Syndrome repeatedly draws the same face on every character they draw. This usually stems from a lack of artistic ability or knowledge. Person 1: Hey, have you seen Rob Liefeld's work? Person 2: Yeah, it's awful. That guy has a serious case of Same Face Syndrome. Person 1: How is he even getting paid for his art? by charleychibi February 24, 2013 105 16 f FLAG

The release of the Disney movie Frozen in November 2013 spurred more conversations about Same Face Syndrome, with Tumblr^[4] user Turbomun making a viral post discussing the phenomenon titled, "Sameface Syndrome and other stories" on March 18th, 2014. The post gathered over 30,000 notes in ten years (seen below, left).

Wordpress blog Theepierrot^[5] made a similar observation on October 10th, 2014 (seen below, right).

Sameface Syndrome and other stories In October of 2012, I was enrolled in one of my first serious animation classes, with a professor who I rather admired. I admired him so much, in fact, that I caught him outside of class time and asked him to review a few of my personal character designs. I was a very mediocre artist at that point (as opposed to now, where I'm a slightly less mediocre artist) and upon presenting my teacher with my designs, which were all intended to be different characters with different stories and different appearances, he barely had to scrutinize them before he delivered his verdict: "They all have the same face." And, I was dismayed to discover, he was right. Since then, I have studied long and hard, so that my female characters may no longer have the Exact Same Face. Huh...female characters. Funny how that works, isn't it? A few months after this incident, the official character designs for Disney's Frozen were leaked.

Disney is growing continuously infamous for the similar look between a lot of the female leads. Take a look at the following characters and you may notice a pattern. Rapunzel Elsa Anna Honey Lemon

Spread

Sometime in 2015, Tumblr^[6] user palidoozy-art made a post with recommendations for how artists could avoid "Same Face Syndrome," gathering over 5,000 notes in nine years (seen below).

Anonymous said: June 21st 2014, 3:00:00 am - 3 days ago your faces are always so varied it's really impressive! do you have any tips for people trying to work on wiggling out of "same face" syndrome? 1) REMEMBER - YOUR CHARACTER SHOULD BE UNIQUE IN YOUR UNIVERSE. QUICK! WHICH ONE OF THESE THREE WOMEN IS THE PRETTIEST?! ANSWER: ALL OF THEM, PROBABLY, BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL THE SAME WITH ONLY VERY MINOR CHANGES. YOUR CHARACTERS, THEORETICALLY, LIVE AND BREATHE IN YOUR OWN UNIVERSE. YOUR GOAL WHEN MAKING YOUR CHARACTERS SHOULDN'T BE TO MAKE THEM THE MOST UNIQUE SPECIAL SNOW- FLAKES IN ALL OF THE ART WORLD--RATHER, DESIGN THEM SIDE-BY-SIDE AND CONSTANTLY COMPARE THEM WITH EACH OTHER. MAKE THEM BALD, STRIP THEM OF COLOR AND PUT THEM RIGHT BY EACH OTHER. CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE? ARE YOU ALSO AC- COUNTING FOR THE SLIGHT VARIATIONS THAT'LL OCCUR WHEN YOU DRAW THEM FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES, HAVING DIFFERENT EXPRES- SIONS?

On July 24th, 2020, Redditor^[7] /u/Lola101_ posted a joke about Sims players and their tendency to give their Sims the same face. The post gathered over 11,000 upvotes in three years (seen below, left). On November 26th, 2023, X^[8] user @SexyGayVampire made a post that read, "Still crazy how Disney managed to same-face-syndrome a dragon like this just looks like Elsa's fursona," gathering over 100,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).

11.41 Sims on the gallery be like Meme Same face syndrome my old friend (i.redd.it) submitted 3 years ago by Lola101_ 157 comments share save hide report crosspost hide all child comments Sims on the gallery be like:

& CHARLEMAGNE @SexyGayVampire Still crazy how Disney managed to same-face-syndrome a dragon like this just looks like Elsa's fursona Serarel @SerarelDeer Nov 26 if you see this, tweet a dragon twitter.com/TheAbbey Roadie... II GIF 12:48 PM . Nov 26, 2023 2.8M Views ...

Search Interest

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External References

^[1] Lemmasoft – Renai

^[2] The MM Network – 2011

^[3] Urban Dictionary – Same Face Syndrome

^[4] Tumblr – turbomun

^[5] Wordpress – theepierrot

^[6] Tumblr – palidoozy-art

^[7] Reddit – /r/thesims

^[8] X – SexyGayVampire

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Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by Ismael Restrepo Velez	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi
Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi
Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi	Same Face Syndrome Uploaded by sakshi