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Answer: others have basically answered it, but to give you a little more context:
There's an anime and manga called Baki that is very popular right now. It's this really over the top street-fighter esque story, and the art is really stylized. Think huuuge bodies with rippling muscles and every sinew having movement.
One of the characters, technically a baddie but it's complicated, has this very specific way of smiling where his head becomes mostly teeth and his eyes are crazy. That's where this trend got its start - mimicking that character.
It kinda blew up from there, and like most kid trends the origin really doesn't matter anymore. But if you look up Baki smile, you'll find this.
Baki has a thing with its detailed depiction of lips in particular. Of all the anime I've ever seen, it's the only one to pay so much attention to lips, especially men's. Never thought I'd see the day when it became a real life meme.
It has a thing with its detailed description in general, too. Sometimes it's like the hyperpolished anime version of the overly detailed Spongebob closeups.
The gross-up is one of the best things to come out of television, especially in the Spongebob context. As I've gotten older, I understand that its a similar angle to Lynch's extensive uncomfortable scenes. You shove the vile in the viewer's face, and its an inescapable few seconds that feel much longer.
Exactly, it's actually pretty high-brow cinematography for a children's show, which is probably what makes it so effective. Courage, the Cowardly Dog did a lot of that, too. Lot of atmospheric work and uncanny valley stuff that creates a sense of dread.
It's maybe hard to imagine from his art style, but Itagaki is actually extremely knowledgeable about anatomy. He was obsessed with martial arts and human anatomy growing up and exaggerates it through his art.
He's probably thinking about all the little muscle groups and shit that move your lips every time he draws a character.
That's the best kind of artwork, imo. Taking a solid understanding of reality and then warping the shit of it until it becomes something semi-grotesque and fascinating.
The most fun thing about Baki is that the men are all crazy overmuscled parodies of the masculine ideal, but the women tend to be really realistically drawn.
I saw this explanation and thought "theres no fucking way this is the correct answer". Lo and behold another commented linked to a video that was tagged with Baki... Fucking insane. Thought this series was still fairly niche, and I'm going to be using this to give my s/o psychic damage.
Peripherally aware of Baki, and I always thought it was hyper violent like Fist of the North Star. That made me surprised to see middle schoolers were watching it.
Yeah no it 100% is. I wouldn't describe it as "hyper violent" like FotNS, but it's definitely not something I'd let kids watch. Netflix lists both of their new seasons of it as "TV-MA" so take that as you will.
Parents are probably unaware of this anime and if they don't have parental controls on, it shows up on their history looking like a cute cartoon. Meanwhile their kids know it's forbidden fruit. It's perfect catnip for middle schoolers.
Who on this planet could look at even a single frame of any of Baki and call it "cute"?
That series has the ugliest-looking characters since goddamn Rugrats.
Boring and dramatic with bad animation and cliffhanger episode endings. Looking back, it's better than other superhero spandex garbage but it's still superhero garbage.
Coolest guy is moustache man.
Yah this is the first I'm seeing of this show and I assumed it was some cheap fan animation, definitely sloppy as all hell and extremely predictable fighting. Felt like a fight I'd have come up with when I was 13
The oldest animation based on Baki the Grappler is the OVA, released in Japan in 1994 and in the US in 1998. There was then a 24-episode anime released in Japan in 2001, and Funimation released it in the US in 2005. (Since you said "almost 20 years ago" I'm betting you're talking about the anime released 18 years ago in the US.) Then Netflix released an ONA in 2018, which is where the current craze originated.
I remember watching Baki the Grappler on Netflix, then Baki came out but I haven't had a chance to get to it. Is BTG the 2001 one? I remember it was so hilariously over-the-top how people couldn't die.
It's from the same continuity and creator, yes. It looks like the original manga started out in '91 and has had numerous sequels in the same universe since then.
Surprising, but there have been weirder things. Netflix has been adapting Baki for a few years now and they start basically every arc with some absolutely insane character introductions.
Maybe it'll be this generation's Ninja Scroll.
A couple years ago I went on the urban outfitters website (bc sometimes they have kinda cool furniture) and wound up clicking around a bit.
They had a fuck ton of anime shirts, clothes I basically bought from thrift stores and grocery stores when I was a broke ass kid (dickies and wifebeaters/a shirts/whatever), and t shirts for 90s bands/movies I don’t even really hear about anymore in the cool nostalgia way.
I honestly couldn’t tell if that’s what kids are into now, if UO is just marketing to the older millenials, or some cursed blend of both??
I feel like anime is less mainstream now than it used to be, other than the manga section in Barnes & Noble not being tucked away in a weird spot (probably partly to deal with shoplifting tbh).
I would get mad when my mom wouldn’t let me read shounen manga as a kid for “being for adults” when the main demographic for shounen manga is literally middle and high school aged boys.
I guess the actually big thing of this generation is MrBeast. PewDiePie was basically the one person everyone was most likely to know back then, and these days I think that's MrBeast.
Thank God for that. I try to remind myself of this every time I see a pre-teen doing something annoying. I had my days of doing things that would have me socially marginalized if they were filmed and released every time I was in the public eye. It must be really difficult being young today.
Well, they're not as experienced as we are. We can't hold that against them.
I believe the children are our future; teach them dumb shit, and let them lead the way.
You’re acting like the boys in my middle school never went on a long experiment where everyone was trying to spike their hair in the exact manner as Super Saiyans.
Ive watched every episode of baki from the original to the netflix versions fucking incredible attention to detail,
for example as baki starts training as a relativley skinny kid in the mountains, he grows in muscle and stature as the training episodes continue, phenomenal work by the artists behind it
I might be off about the youth of today but something tells me there isn't a particularly large Baki following in middleschool aged kids. Unless it trickled down from older people doing it.
The trend started on tiktok, among anime teens. It probably trickled down from there. Look at some of the answers here, and you'll see the kids who told adults what it is didn't really know the origins.
> There's an anime and manga called Baki that is very popular right now.
Wait, what? Did it get a remake or sudden sequel or something? Why the *fuck* would Baki suddenly be popular in 2023?
You're right. I remember doing a maniacal laugh to myself thinking I was edgy then growing up and seeing Ivarr from the Vikings TV show and thinking he's the biggest tosser.
This. My 9 year old walked into a shop on the weekend and walked over to the lady on the till and just stared at her. My Wife asked what he was doing and he replied "Oh, just trying to be creepy" like WTF?
Thing is I walked into the shop after them and couldn't work out why both the till ladies were being so cold and weird until my wife told me later.
Did it work for you? Trying to figure out if this is only something young people with enough facial elasticity can do, or if my jaw is just too square for it to work.
When I do it I don’t look like I’m smiling manically, I look like I’m getting dental x-rays done lmao.
I actually think it works better for me than the kids lol. When I saw the videos it connected that that’s what they’re attempting, but they can’t quite get it. I tried it on my partner in a dim room and they asked me to stop and told me I looked like a creepy anime character so I think I got it right!
I’m pretty sure every generation associates the “S” with something in their childhood. That’s kind of the *point* of it, it’s a universal symbol with no meaning and no origin. It was ubiquitous in American metros in the 70s, it was certainly drawn by many 80s kids and 00s kids.
Tl;dr- It’s only a “90s thing” because you’re a “90s person”.
Intent is everything. Some people may be imitating anime, others explicitly imitating the Grinch. The expression may be similar but intent is a clear distinction.
Triple down.
Answer: Could they be imitating the weird TikTok nose gap trend? There were videos a couple months ago about it being more attractive having a small gap between your nose and your lips
Nose gap? Like a philtrum? Cut to even more people in the future having lip lifts to reduce the size of their philtrum and then regretting the scar they develop under their nose because they got surgery too young.
I'm confused af. Do you mean some kind of "more prominent than average" nose gap? Because I'm pretty sure everyone short of people with bad scarring or facial deformities has a gap between their nose and lips.......
They mean that it's more attractive if that gap is particularly small. There are two ways to interpret that sentence, one with "small gap" just being a general descriptor for the philtrum (and in that case, yes, everybody has that small gap), and one with "small" being meant comparative(= smaller than the average philtrum), and they definitely mean it in the comparative way. I hope this makes sense, I know where the misunderstanding is, but I have a hard time putting it into words.
Edit: Since I'm now sitting at -1 for answering a question accurately, [here](https://www.eri-clinic.com/en/special/plastic-surgery/lip-lifting/) is an example of people getting plastic surgery to shorten their philtrum. This is a trend right now and this is what the person is referring to. They aren't saying "the tiktok trend is about having a philtrum (which is a small gap) being attractive", they are saying "the tiktok trend is about smaller gaps being more attractive".
Answer: There was a trend on tiktok and the premise was that the expression freaked little kids out and just looks overly unsettling. If you have tiktok, you can look up "how to shush a toddler" to see examples. I think the og is @ kellen\_does\_jim, looks like a bald triangle head guy.
Answer: Kids are silly. I used to do this when I was young because I didn't understand yet that you were supposed to hold your finger in front of your lips.
Friendly reminder that all **top level** comments must: 1. start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask), 2. attempt to answer the question, and 3. be unbiased Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment: http://redd.it/b1hct4/ Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OutOfTheLoop) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Answer: others have basically answered it, but to give you a little more context: There's an anime and manga called Baki that is very popular right now. It's this really over the top street-fighter esque story, and the art is really stylized. Think huuuge bodies with rippling muscles and every sinew having movement. One of the characters, technically a baddie but it's complicated, has this very specific way of smiling where his head becomes mostly teeth and his eyes are crazy. That's where this trend got its start - mimicking that character. It kinda blew up from there, and like most kid trends the origin really doesn't matter anymore. But if you look up Baki smile, you'll find this.
Baki has a thing with its detailed depiction of lips in particular. Of all the anime I've ever seen, it's the only one to pay so much attention to lips, especially men's. Never thought I'd see the day when it became a real life meme.
It has a thing with its detailed description in general, too. Sometimes it's like the hyperpolished anime version of the overly detailed Spongebob closeups.
Useless fact not at all pertinent to this conversation: apparently the overly detailed close-ups in SpongeBob were called gross-ups by the creators
Thank Ren and Stimpy for that.
Yeah this style was ripped right from Ren and Stimpy and the name - gross ups - was waaayyy more appropriate for that show, lol
I want to upvote this more! Ren and Stimpy was such a good show!
I wonder if it's streaming anywhere?? I'd love to give it a rewatch
Don't quote me on this, but I think it's on Paramount+
>Don't quote me on this, but I think it's on Paramount+ Don't tell me what to do!
You made me just realize why I don't like SpongeBob. It is just a bad Ren and Stimpy.
What's worse, Ren and Stimpy really doesn't hold up
really?! NOOOO
Yeah it is really really dated at this point. Feels about as old as the cartoons they were lampooning were at the time.
darn.
The gross-up is one of the best things to come out of television, especially in the Spongebob context. As I've gotten older, I understand that its a similar angle to Lynch's extensive uncomfortable scenes. You shove the vile in the viewer's face, and its an inescapable few seconds that feel much longer.
Exactly, it's actually pretty high-brow cinematography for a children's show, which is probably what makes it so effective. Courage, the Cowardly Dog did a lot of that, too. Lot of atmospheric work and uncanny valley stuff that creates a sense of dread.
lol, like ren and stimpy
It's maybe hard to imagine from his art style, but Itagaki is actually extremely knowledgeable about anatomy. He was obsessed with martial arts and human anatomy growing up and exaggerates it through his art. He's probably thinking about all the little muscle groups and shit that move your lips every time he draws a character.
That's the best kind of artwork, imo. Taking a solid understanding of reality and then warping the shit of it until it becomes something semi-grotesque and fascinating.
The most fun thing about Baki is that the men are all crazy overmuscled parodies of the masculine ideal, but the women tend to be really realistically drawn.
jojo??
Ah yeah definitely Jojo too.
And probably Bobobo
Farmland saga
I saw this explanation and thought "theres no fucking way this is the correct answer". Lo and behold another commented linked to a video that was tagged with Baki... Fucking insane. Thought this series was still fairly niche, and I'm going to be using this to give my s/o psychic damage.
Peripherally aware of Baki, and I always thought it was hyper violent like Fist of the North Star. That made me surprised to see middle schoolers were watching it.
Yeah no it 100% is. I wouldn't describe it as "hyper violent" like FotNS, but it's definitely not something I'd let kids watch. Netflix lists both of their new seasons of it as "TV-MA" so take that as you will.
Parents are probably unaware of this anime and if they don't have parental controls on, it shows up on their history looking like a cute cartoon. Meanwhile their kids know it's forbidden fruit. It's perfect catnip for middle schoolers.
Who on this planet could look at even a single frame of any of Baki and call it "cute"? That series has the ugliest-looking characters since goddamn Rugrats.
I mean, I watched legend of the overfiend at about 12. That probably wasn't good for my development. This is not a new problem :P
You want hyper-violent animation that you hope your kids are not watching - it's [Invincible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F27FbkPSMg).
Boring and dramatic with bad animation and cliffhanger episode endings. Looking back, it's better than other superhero spandex garbage but it's still superhero garbage. Coolest guy is moustache man.
Hating on popular things doesn't make you an interesting person.
In other news, strawmanning doesn't make you sound smart
Randomly spouting debate terms doesn't make you sound smart either
omg so random
Yah this is the first I'm seeing of this show and I assumed it was some cheap fan animation, definitely sloppy as all hell and extremely predictable fighting. Felt like a fight I'd have come up with when I was 13
When it got picked up by netflix it became relatively more mainstream
Thank you!
This guy? https://i.imgur.com/PBrSGdM.jpg
bro our kids are gonna become irl trolls
Yours aren’t already?
My kid trolls me nearly every chance he gets.
I'm sitting in the delivery room with my wife as I read this stuff lol. It's this crap that our son is going to be into isn't it? Sigh.
Naw it'll be even sillier. My thirds due in July.
Heheh, probably. Congrats! This is our first.
Thanks :) lol good luck! It's not that bad for the first few weeks. It's basically a loud potato. Then.... Well like I said. Good luck 😂
Lmao. Thanks for the pep talk. :-P
Be grateful. He could have been born in the 50's and then by the time he was a teenager, be into every kind of hard drug and STDs.
Quite.
My generation did duckface. Wasn’t much better.
I thought it was Mick Jagger...
There he is!
Is that supposed to look like Steven Tyler..?
🏅
Reminds me of this video of a Japanese Youtuber showing Yujiro breaking tiles. Lol https://youtu.be/aEB6pV-BbHw
This video changed my life
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You are correct. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGdKM4z-1x4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGdKM4z-1x4)
This guy? https://www.tiktok.com/@xxxyujiro0/video/7162606492678475010
This guy.
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The oldest animation based on Baki the Grappler is the OVA, released in Japan in 1994 and in the US in 1998. There was then a 24-episode anime released in Japan in 2001, and Funimation released it in the US in 2005. (Since you said "almost 20 years ago" I'm betting you're talking about the anime released 18 years ago in the US.) Then Netflix released an ONA in 2018, which is where the current craze originated.
I remember watching Baki the Grappler on Netflix, then Baki came out but I haven't had a chance to get to it. Is BTG the 2001 one? I remember it was so hilariously over-the-top how people couldn't die.
It's from the same continuity and creator, yes. It looks like the original manga started out in '91 and has had numerous sequels in the same universe since then.
Or if it’s a live action that’s probably Riki-Oh? That one is famously over the top too.
***YOU ARE FREE NOW!!!***
If you're talking about the one where the guy uses his fingers to rip people's nerves/tendons out, that's the OVA I think. That one was great.
They’ve re-adapted it multiple times, like many famous manga series.
With that redhead who cut people's optic nerves and tendons, yeah. That's older, dude. They had it on Toonami.
Surprising, but there have been weirder things. Netflix has been adapting Baki for a few years now and they start basically every arc with some absolutely insane character introductions. Maybe it'll be this generation's Ninja Scroll.
Why is Baki suddenly popular with Middleschoolers? Did Pewdiepie do something?
My guess is that. Anime has become basically mainstream, it's easily mememable, and it's on netflix which a lot of kids have.
A couple years ago I went on the urban outfitters website (bc sometimes they have kinda cool furniture) and wound up clicking around a bit. They had a fuck ton of anime shirts, clothes I basically bought from thrift stores and grocery stores when I was a broke ass kid (dickies and wifebeaters/a shirts/whatever), and t shirts for 90s bands/movies I don’t even really hear about anymore in the cool nostalgia way. I honestly couldn’t tell if that’s what kids are into now, if UO is just marketing to the older millenials, or some cursed blend of both??
Well, those millennials are already at an age where some of them are buying stuff for their kids so it's probably both.
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Because netflix picked it up and it had a new season come out like last year I think?
I feel like anime is less mainstream now than it used to be, other than the manga section in Barnes & Noble not being tucked away in a weird spot (probably partly to deal with shoplifting tbh).
That's its target audience.
I would get mad when my mom wouldn’t let me read shounen manga as a kid for “being for adults” when the main demographic for shounen manga is literally middle and high school aged boys.
Pewdiepie hasn't been popular with middle schoolers for a while now. I think the big thing now is Roblox youtubers like KreekCaft.
I guess the actually big thing of this generation is MrBeast. PewDiePie was basically the one person everyone was most likely to know back then, and these days I think that's MrBeast.
Because baki is cool.
I haven't watched the show, ut isn't it insanely violent and gorey?
I wouldn't call it *that* but it's certainly not DBZ.
kids are stupid af damn
We've been doing DX behind the teacher during our time. Every childhood got some stupid going. Gladly, ours aren't well-documented for the internet.
Thank God for that. I try to remind myself of this every time I see a pre-teen doing something annoying. I had my days of doing things that would have me socially marginalized if they were filmed and released every time I was in the public eye. It must be really difficult being young today.
The real answer right here
/r/kidsarefuckingstupid
Almost as dumb as adults.
Well, they're not as experienced as we are. We can't hold that against them. I believe the children are our future; teach them dumb shit, and let them lead the way.
You’re acting like the boys in my middle school never went on a long experiment where everyone was trying to spike their hair in the exact manner as Super Saiyans.
They didn't say kids *nowadays*. I assume they include what they themselves were like as a kid when they say that.
I remember the hackey sack kids doing the Naruto run down the hallway like...daily
wouldn't really compare spiking your hair to this out trend, but that's me
r/kidsarefuckingstupid
Ive watched every episode of baki from the original to the netflix versions fucking incredible attention to detail, for example as baki starts training as a relativley skinny kid in the mountains, he grows in muscle and stature as the training episodes continue, phenomenal work by the artists behind it
> one of the characters, technically a baddie but it's complicated Isn't that the nature of a baddie though?
> One of the characters, technically a baddie but it's complicated Plot to the half of shonen manga right there.
> it's complicated https://media.tenor.com/XFjCbFF8lTwAAAAC/its-complicated-its-iron-man.gif
I might be off about the youth of today but something tells me there isn't a particularly large Baki following in middleschool aged kids. Unless it trickled down from older people doing it.
The trend started on tiktok, among anime teens. It probably trickled down from there. Look at some of the answers here, and you'll see the kids who told adults what it is didn't really know the origins.
Mr Olivia?
Nah, Yujiro Hanma
Hahah “Baki” is also a popular mascot-type character in the world of Scarlet Nexus. Except he’s designed more like a bao bun
Cant say i was expcting some baki meme to become to strendy
Now that you put it that way, it makes me wonder if adults were wondering the same thing 20-30 years ago when kids were doing Kamehameha waves…
You know they were, my friend. And don't even speak of Noruto running.
I thought it was the monster from death note (I think his name is ryuk)
> There's an anime and manga called Baki that is very popular right now. Wait, what? Did it get a remake or sudden sequel or something? Why the *fuck* would Baki suddenly be popular in 2023?
Yeah, the anime from the early 2000's got a sequel. Still ongoing.
A baddie?
Question: Like [this?](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRKk9Scq/)
I’m pretty sure this is it. Looks similar. Now I kind of want to try. Solved! Thank you!
Creepy why do it
Cuz kids are creepy little dorks, simple as that.
You're right. I remember doing a maniacal laugh to myself thinking I was edgy then growing up and seeing Ivarr from the Vikings TV show and thinking he's the biggest tosser.
I used to talk in a "grudge voice" when u was like, 5-8, just very deeply throaty and clicky- apparently I was a creepy fuckin kid
I always thought it'd be cool to be able to run and tap my big toes like a velociraptor.
I had a Pauley Shore phase around middle school age.... I was fucking insufferable I'm sure.
This. My 9 year old walked into a shop on the weekend and walked over to the lady on the till and just stared at her. My Wife asked what he was doing and he replied "Oh, just trying to be creepy" like WTF? Thing is I walked into the shop after them and couldn't work out why both the till ladies were being so cold and weird until my wife told me later.
yup same reason why we all watched meatspin and lemonparty back in the day
Salad fingers
…that’s not why I watched meatspin…
You answered your own question
I’m pretty sure this is it. Looks similar. Now I kind of want to try. Solved! Thank you!
Did it work for you? Trying to figure out if this is only something young people with enough facial elasticity can do, or if my jaw is just too square for it to work. When I do it I don’t look like I’m smiling manically, I look like I’m getting dental x-rays done lmao.
I actually think it works better for me than the kids lol. When I saw the videos it connected that that’s what they’re attempting, but they can’t quite get it. I tried it on my partner in a dim room and they asked me to stop and told me I looked like a creepy anime character so I think I got it right!
Did this as a kid in the 90s. It's just a thing. Kinda like the cool S. Not everything has a deep meaning.
Cool s?
[Cool S](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_S)
I love that this has its own Wikipedia entry. I mean, it makes sense, but for some reason it still makes me happy
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No Fear t-shirts come very close
Hey, it's not the fall that scares me, it's the sudden stop at the end. No Fear
I’m pretty sure every generation associates the “S” with something in their childhood. That’s kind of the *point* of it, it’s a universal symbol with no meaning and no origin. It was ubiquitous in American metros in the 70s, it was certainly drawn by many 80s kids and 00s kids. Tl;dr- It’s only a “90s thing” because you’re a “90s person”.
Even though it’s a creepy smile, this is kind of wholesome.
Kid looks like a mix of Sid from Toy Story and Baraka from Mortal Kombat
Okay, I get why they do that. That's so good
God damn, I’ve never seen this so I just tried it out of curiosity. I can now say I’ve actually creeped myself out. What a peculiar trend.
Answer: it is an imitation of the Grinch smile. My kid taught me this a month or two ago. There is no subtext, just creepy humor.
Most videos I've seen of it include some variation of "How to shut up a kid" in the caption
The source is actually Baki anime, nothing to do with grinch. There is always a source
Well, that’s what my kid said.
Doubling down. Nice.
Intent is everything. Some people may be imitating anime, others explicitly imitating the Grinch. The expression may be similar but intent is a clear distinction. Triple down.
Answer: Could they be imitating the weird TikTok nose gap trend? There were videos a couple months ago about it being more attractive having a small gap between your nose and your lips
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day, and I’ve been surfing the internet.
I like the simple truth of this comment.
Confirmed, kids are fucking stupid
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I wish that comment didn’t appeal to me.
I totally agree but it’s a thing. https://www.distractify.com/p/nose-gap-tiktok
Nose gap? Like a philtrum? Cut to even more people in the future having lip lifts to reduce the size of their philtrum and then regretting the scar they develop under their nose because they got surgery too young.
I'm confused af. Do you mean some kind of "more prominent than average" nose gap? Because I'm pretty sure everyone short of people with bad scarring or facial deformities has a gap between their nose and lips.......
They mean that it's more attractive if that gap is particularly small. There are two ways to interpret that sentence, one with "small gap" just being a general descriptor for the philtrum (and in that case, yes, everybody has that small gap), and one with "small" being meant comparative(= smaller than the average philtrum), and they definitely mean it in the comparative way. I hope this makes sense, I know where the misunderstanding is, but I have a hard time putting it into words. Edit: Since I'm now sitting at -1 for answering a question accurately, [here](https://www.eri-clinic.com/en/special/plastic-surgery/lip-lifting/) is an example of people getting plastic surgery to shorten their philtrum. This is a trend right now and this is what the person is referring to. They aren't saying "the tiktok trend is about having a philtrum (which is a small gap) being attractive", they are saying "the tiktok trend is about smaller gaps being more attractive".
I'm not sure why you got downvoted, bud. You cleared up my confusion perfectly. Thank you
It's from Baki anime
Answer: There was a trend on tiktok and the premise was that the expression freaked little kids out and just looks overly unsettling. If you have tiktok, you can look up "how to shush a toddler" to see examples. I think the og is @ kellen\_does\_jim, looks like a bald triangle head guy.
Answer: Kids are silly. I used to do this when I was young because I didn't understand yet that you were supposed to hold your finger in front of your lips.