Big Grin Never Ever

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Big Grin Never Ever is a rage comic face reaction, also called Grinface or Epic Lulz Guy, that depicts wide-mouthed joy and smugness after pulling off a prank. It first appeared in a deviantArt rage comic in April 2009 and became a staple face in the rage comic boom of the early 2010s.

Overview

Big Grin Never Ever, better known simply as Big Grin, is a rage comic face reaction also filed under the aliases Grinface and Epic Lulz Guy1. It shows a wide, toothy mouth stretched across the whole face with small dot eyes, meant to express inevitable joy and smugness after a character pulls off a prank or watches a plan pay off2.

Memebase's rage comic builder catalogued the face under its Trolls category, grouping it with other troll-oriented reactions2. In rage comic sequences the face is typically drawn in the final panel as the payoff shot, playing the emotional opposite of the classic Rage Guy who screams FFFFUUUU3.

How It Spread

Through 2010 and 2011 the face got baked into the two most-used rage comic construction tools of the era. Memebase's builder listed Grin as a Trolls-section face, letting anyone drop it into a strip without drawing it themselves2. The Dan Awesome Ragemaker web tool also included Grin in its default face library, cementing it as a stock reaction4.

Rage face catalogue sites picked it up next. All The Rage Faces! filed Grin alongside Trollface, Me Gusta, Cereal Guy, and dozens of other reactions that defined the format5. The face saw heavy use on Reddit's r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu subreddit during the rage comic peak years around 2011 to 2012, usually as the final smug panel after a successful troll.

As rage comics faded from mainstream feeds around 2013 to 2014, Big Grin stayed in circulation as a nostalgic callback face, still popping up in ironic reposts of old rage strips3.

How to Use This Meme

Big Grin is typically used as the punchline panel of a multi-frame rage comic. A common convention is to place the face in the final panel right after a prank lands, a rival gets owned, or a plan works out exactly as the character hoped. It often replaces a spoken reaction and works as pure facial expression, so no caption is needed underneath.

Frequently Asked Questions