Glen Powell Capybara Face — Glen Powell in a black tuxedo and bow tie smiling widely with an exaggerated open-mouth grin on a red carpet backdrop.

Glen Powell Capybara Face

2023reaction imagesemi-active

Published October 26, 2026

A 2016 red carpet photo of actor Glen Powell grinning in a tuxedo took on a second life in April 2023 when Twitter users started captioning it with jokes about his face looking slightly inhuman. One quote retweet comparing him to a capybara who wished to become a person racked up hundreds of thousands of likes and locked in the image as a reaction template.

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Overview

Glen Powell Capybara Face, also called Glen Powell Smile, is a reaction image showing the actor in a tuxedo at a 2016 Hidden Figures event, flashing a wide, slightly stiff grin straight into the camera1. In early 2023, Twitter users started pairing the headshot with captions that compared his expression to something not quite human, with the capybara comparison being the sticky one2.

Typical posts drop the photo under a one-liner about trying to pass as normal in an awkward situation, like waiting at a dispensary or holding eye contact too long3. The humor hinges on the oddly fixed quality of Powell's smile, which readers started reading as a creature doing its best impression of a person. Captions tend toward absurd physical comparisons, from a parking meter to a woodland animal mid-wish, rather than jokes about Powell himself4.

The photo circulated widely as a standalone reaction, with no edits or face swaps needed, which made it easy to screenshot and repost across platforms5.

Origin & Background

Platform
NASA/Flickr (source photo) / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2023

The source photo was taken on December 10th, 2016, at the SVA Theatre in New York during the global celebration of the film Hidden Figures, and uploaded to NASA's Flickr account1. A cropped version later ended up on Powell's Wikipedia page6.

The first known memetic use came on April 28th, 2023, when Twitter user @MissGioBaby1 posted the image with the caption "Me next in line at the dispensary trying to act normal:" and gained roughly 18,800 likes within a month3. The capybara comparison that gave the meme its name arrived the next day.

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How It Spread

Within hours of @MissGioBaby1's post, @andrewlowe captioned the same image "he looks like a parking meter I wanna put a quarter in his mouth," picking up around 89,800 likes in a month4. On April 29th, 2023, @koalarolls quote tweeted the original with "he looks like a capybara who made a wish to become human," and that version hit roughly 267,000 likes in a month, naming the meme in the process2.

The @koalarolls tweet was screenshotted and reposted across other platforms. iFunny user @SemiAnon shared the screenshot on May 3rd, where it gained around 12,000 smiles7. Twitter users kept rolling out new captions into the summer, with @zuza_real tweeting on June 6th, 2023 that she was "training my face to make this expression 24/7 regardless of my mental state," picking up roughly 31,300 likes in a day8.

The image stayed in rotation as a general-purpose reaction for forced smiles and public-facing composure, though the main burst of attention clustered in spring 20235.

Timeline

2016-12-10

NASA photographer shoots Glen Powell on the red carpet at the Hidden Figures celebration at the SVA Theatre in New York and uploads the image to Flickr.

2023-04-28

Twitter user @MissGioBaby1 posts the first known memetic use, captioning the photo about acting normal at a dispensary.

2023-04-28

@andrewlowe captions the image with the parking meter line, pulling around 89,800 likes within a month.

2023-04-29

@koalarolls quote tweets the original with the capybara comparison, hitting roughly 267,000 likes and giving the meme its name.

2023-05-03

IFunny user @SemiAnon reposts a screenshot of the capybara tweet, where it gains around 12,000 smiles.

2023-06-06

@zuza_real posts a viral caption about training to hold the expression 24/7, pulling around 31,300 likes in a day.

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