Charlie Kirk Smile — Side-by-side of Charlie Kirk smiling in an interview and in an unflattering selfie

Charlie Kirk Smile

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Published July 30, 2026

The Charlie Kirk Smile is a running joke about the mocked facial expression of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, whose gummy grin was branded "creepy" by internet users through the early 2020s. It broke wide in September 2024 after Kirk smiled at debate opponent Naima Troutt during a Jubilee TikTok, prompting her viral "Ew, his smile is very creepy" reaction.

facial expression memes political satire memes behavior mocking memes body image memes culture war memes

Overview

The Charlie Kirk Smile is a mockery format built around the facial expression of Turning Point USA founder and right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk9. Critics fixated on what they described as a gummy grin with small teeth relative to the mouth, tagging it "creepy" and "ugly" across Twitter, TikTok and other platforms3.

The joke almost always attaches captions, drawings or fancam edits to two specific pieces of footage. The first is a January 2017 tuxedo photo of Kirk with pollster Kellyanne Conway1. The second is a September 2024 Jubilee video clip in which Kirk smiles at a Black debate contestant after arguing about the Latin etymology of "fetus"8. Both were later redrawn by artists, most visibly by YouTube animator MeatCanyon10.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter/X (source photo), TikTok (viral spread 2024)
Date
2020

On January 17th, 2017, Kirk posted a photo of himself with Conway to Twitter after Donald Trump's inauguration, captioned "With the woman who saved western civilization"1. The tuxedo image showed him grinning at the camera but did not blow up immediately.

The first jokes about the smile came from a different clip. On July 26th, 2020, Kirk appeared on Fox News during a segment about the Portland protests following the death of George Floyd, ending it by smiling, laughing and rolling his eyes2. On November 17th, 2020, X user @NotHoodlum posted the earliest known viral joke about the smile, captioned "Have Charlie Kirk's Gums conceded yet?", pulling around 1,700 likes3.

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How It Spread

The 2017 Conway photo caught on during a January 21st, 2023 tweet burst. X user @JarJarFan69 reposted it uncaptioned for over 2,000 likes4, and later that day @cooIboobs added the caption "this is unedited" for roughly 27,900 likes before deleting the post5. The next day, @TeahLhompson wrote "I genuinely think this image could stop the heart of someone on shrooms" over the same picture and pulled over 107,000 likes6.

Interest returned in September 2024. On September 8th, Jubilee uploaded "Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart 1 Conservative?" to YouTube7. Two days later, the channel posted a TikTok clip in which Kirk claimed "fetus" means "little human being" in Latin and smiled at a college student named Naima Troutt, prompting her to reply "Ew, his smile is very creepy"8. That clip pulled roughly 56.4 million plays and 5.6 million likes in ten days.

Derivatives came fast. TikToker @tmtongaa followed on September 11th with a stitch that drew Kirk's smile by hand, and on September 22nd MeatCanyon posted a distorted portrait to X captioned "I did the thing," which drew around 492,000 likes in a day10.

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How to Use This Meme

Common formats include reposting the Kellyanne Conway tuxedo photo or the Jubilee TikTok with a horror-tone caption about the grin, or drawing a warped MeatCanyon-style version10. TikTok fancam edits of Naima Troutt's "Ew, his smile is very creepy" reaction are another common convention8.

Frequently Asked Questions