Glowing Eyes — Blonde young man with bright beams of light shining from both eyes outdoors

Glowing Eyes

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Published October 9, 2026

Glowing Eyes, also known as Laser Eyes, is a Photoshop meme where the eyes of people, characters, and animals get edited to blaze with bright energy, mimicking the 'super mode' trope from games and anime. The format grew out of Mass Effect 2 edits in 2010 and later powered Dark MAGA, Dark Brandon, and the Bitcoin Laser Eyes profile picture trend.

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Overview

The core format pairs an ordinary or ominous photograph with eyes edited to shine with bright light, usually white, yellow, red, or blue. The effect borrows animation shorthand for a character powering up or getting possessed, which TV Tropes catalogued under a 2011 entry describing the device as a way to show off 'Life Energy' or a triggered 'Super Mode'1. YouTube tutorials by Bubway in February 20173 and PolarSaurusRex a month later walked viewers through layering lens flares and glow effects onto portraits4.

Inside the Deep Fried Memes stack, glowing eyes sit alongside oversaturated colors, JPEG artifacts, and the sunglasses emoji as a visual tag for maximum intensity5. The look tells the viewer that the subject has gone 'full power,' which is why it later attached so cleanly to political alter egos like Dark MAGA Trump and Dark Brandon Biden, and to crypto holders signaling conviction with #LaserRayUntil100K profile pictures.

Origin & Background

Platform
4chan / Tumblr (viral spread)
Date
2010

The visual gag traces back to Mass Effect 2, released on January 26th, 2010, in which the Reaper ship Harbinger triggers glowing yellow eyes on Collector enemies while 'assuming direct control' of them5. Over the following months, Photoshops of animals and characters wearing those same yellow eyes with the 'assuming direct control' caption began circulating.

On January 30th, 2011, TV Tropes documented the broader animation device under a 'Glowing Eyes' page, which gave meme creators a shared vocabulary for the effect1. Tumblr user maohshounen posted a widely reshared edit on May 13th, 2013 showing a skeleton in a rocking chair with glowing eyes captioned 'ah yes my throne'2.

How It Spread

On August 13th, 2014, a 4chan thread mocked a newspaper headline claiming Ebola-infected American doctor Kent Brantly was 'growing stronger,' and users suggested editing Brantly 'so he has glowing eyes,' producing a wave of photoshopped portraits5. From there the effect merged into Deep Fried Memes culture on r/dankmemes and got welded onto formats like Gordon Ramsay's Lamb Sauce, Whomst, and Begone Thot.

Tutorial videos pushed the technique past the dank meme subculture. Bubway's February 15th, 2017 Photoshop walkthrough showed viewers how to add red glowing eyes to any portrait3, and PolarSaurusRex's March 16th, 2017 'How to Make Lens Flare Memes' covered the same recipe for a wider audience4.

The format later anchored high-profile political and crypto edits. Bitcoin holders adopted laser-eye profile pictures in February 2021 under the #LaserRayUntil100K tag, pledging to keep the edit until BTC hit $100,0005. Dark MAGA posters applied the effect to Donald Trump in March 2022, Democrats answered with Dark Brandon edits of Joe Biden, and X users returned to the aesthetic after Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.

Timeline

2010-01-26

Mass Effect 2 launches with the Harbinger 'assuming direct control' glowing-eye animation that seeds the meme.

2011-01-30

TV Tropes publishes its 'Glowing Eyes' entry, codifying the animation device as 'Super Mode' shorthand.

2013-05-13

Tumblr user maohshounen posts the 'ah yes my throne' skeleton edit.

2014-08-13

A 4chan thread about Kent Brantly 'growing stronger' sparks a wave of glowing-eye edits of the doctor.

2017-02-15

YouTuber Bubway uploads a Photoshop tutorial for red glowing eyes.

2017-03-16

YouTuber PolarSaurusRex uploads 'How to Make Lens Flare Memes.'

2021-02

Bitcoin holders begin the Laser Eyes profile picture trend under #LaserRayUntil100K.

2022-03

Dark MAGA laser-eye edits of Donald Trump spread on Twitter, soon flipped into Dark Brandon edits of Joe Biden.

Frequently Asked Questions