Resting Bitch Face

Do you suffer from the heartbreak of RBF?

RBF, for those who don’t know is Resting Bitch Face. And, yeah, it’s a thing. As in, when your face is just hanging out, it makes everyone feel like you’re judging them.

“Smile,” someone might encourage you if you have RBF. Or if you’re female. Because no one ever talks about males having RBF.

But, according to some scientists who recently published their study on RBF (who funds this stuff?) men AND women have RBF. These are people who think they’re being neutral, but their resting expressions are kind of…well, bitchy.

The scientists put a bunch of photos through a software called FaceReader that looks at photos and videos of faces and maps eight emotions associated with the expressions on those faces: neutral, fear, happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, and disgust and contempt.

The people with RBF register “contempt” – a slight rise of the lip, a slight squint of the eye – at a significantly higher rate.

Want to find out if you have RBF? You can email a neutral photo of yourself to Jason@noldus.com and they’ll put your photo through the FaceReader.

And, hey, let me know what you find out. We can laugh together about it. Or just not laugh and have everyone tell us to smile.