What is the origin of this combo hand sign/facial expression?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3293/2600505463_e56be8c111.jpg
My daughter and her friends all do this on Facebook. I asked her, and she doesn’t even know what it means.
For whatever reason, it bugs the sh*t out of me. It doesn’t even look cool… it’s a total caricature of itself!!
Guidos [REMOVED LINK ENTIRELY DUE TO MALWARE ISSUES]. (Link has NSFW language; site can be completely NSFW) See also: Jersey Shore
Help! I clicked on those links and now I can’t get the horrible images out of my brain! 
My daughter’s friend does the peace sign thing too.
Those links do not even attempt to explain it.
And surely no-one who ever saw such a photo of themselves (and kids these days surely see very many) could really think the lip thing looks sexy. The “duckface” site’s explanation does not make sense.
I have always assumed it is more or less the opposite: that out of shyness or lack of confidence they make these faces and gestures to say “Hey, don’t mock me, I am not trying to look sexy or cool. I am just goofing about.” However, why these particular forms of goofiness have caught on, I have no idea.
A friend of mine does this. A guy. He gets called out everytime he duckfaces.
My 17 year old and her ding-bat friends used to do that face with an upward peace sign when they were in still in elementary school and obsessed with the Spice Girls. I have got dozens of pictures of her and her friends after every school play, cheerleader camp, or field day all striking the same silly pose.
We now call the face the “Myspace Face” and it appears to be their standard purposefully silly face whenever they have their picture taken and want to show that they are having silly fun. It is closely related to the cliche photo taken from above with their eyes looking to the side all emo-ey. It is all annoying, but that is their job.
I have never seen one of these people, thank Zod. The internet brings us many tales of horror from afar, but none so blood-chilling as this.
Dunno about the funny lips, but the obsessive peace sign throwing in photos is an East Asia thing- in China it’s just about mandatory for all women under 25 to flash a peace sign when getting their photo taken, and I believe it’s pretty much the same in Korea and Japan. Young Chinese women also take LOTS of self-portraits, usually involving cutesy poses. We are talking thousands upon thousands of them for your average college student, no exaggeration at all. And many of these- especially the few that aren’t self-conscious glamor shots, involve peace signs.
I actually read that … and learned waaayyyy more about Guidos than I ever wanted to know… eeeeewwwwww
[Moderating]
****Since I got a malware warning from clicking on the first link, I have broken it. Visit at your own risk.
At any rate, the hand sign shown in the first photo on that site doesn’t have much to do with the sign mentioned in the OP. The person in the photo is just mimicking a rapper, not giving the duckface sign.
The sideways peace sign is “chunking (or chucking) the deuce”.
It’s an update to the peace sign and means peace/peace out. In a picture it means, “it’s cool, I’m cool, we’re cool.” If done while leaving, it signifies “later”. If you are leaving in a huff, or dismissing someone, it’s the gangsta equivalent of “buh-bye.”
I work with a bunch of 20-somethings. Holla.
My computer was infected with a virus shortly after I clicked on this link (it happened before Colibri put up the warning). I would advise against visiting the “Guidos” site.
I did manage to fix my machine, but it took a little doing. BitDefender didn’t recognize this virus - I had to manually disable the virus, then re=install IE and reset the internet options. I think it’s the same virus that got madrabbitwoman, as described in this thread.
It still looks active to me.
It’s an “old” hip-hop version of the “peace sign” meaning “peace out”
The side ways indicates it’s moving out, as in “peace out”
I don’t think it’s actually used anymore in hip-hop.
It’s not a “bad” or “swear” thing
This.
This is why kids do anything - they don’t have a reason among themselves except that it confuzzles the 'rents. (Yes, I know that sentence was incredibly lame sounding, but that’s how people from our generation get back at our kids, by deliberately sounding incredibly un-hip.)
Gee, has it been that long since you were a kid and did things for the sole reason of driving your parents insane?
Crap. I’d no idea that site had any kind of malware. It didn’t infect me so I had no indication anything was wrong with it. I figured it’d be okay since Encyclopedia Dramatica has been around for years as a kind of wiki of Internet memes and explanations of drama taken from certain popular sites. (4chan, Fark, Something Awful, etc.) But yeah, if it’s got nasty crap on it, don’t click.
Sorry 'bout that folks. It didn’t trip any alarms on my end so I’d no idea.
I didn’t have any problems with that site… but I just updated my anti-virus software, so it may have picked up on that.
[moderating]
I re-broke both links.
[/moderating]
I don’t think you need to break the MTV link. I’m fairly certain it’s legit. 