What is Resting Bitch Face?

It's a relaxed, neutral face that other people misread as angry, sad, or contemptuous even when the person is not feeling any of that.

Where did Resting Bitch Face come from?

The initialism RBF was posted to Urban Dictionary by user supersrs on August 18, 2009, and the full phrase followed in a 2011 entry from user miisty.

What does Resting Bitch Face mean?

It means someone's default facial expression happens to look bitchy, angry, or judgmental, without the person actually feeling that way.

How do you use Resting Bitch Face?

It's typically used as self-identification in first-person captions and listicles, or as a light label for a celebrity, cat, or friend whose neutral face reads as mean.

Is Resting Bitch Face still popular?

Yes, RBF is treated as classic internet slang: it moved from Urban Dictionary through a 2013 Funny Or Die viral sketch into mainstream press coverage and stayed in common English usage.

What made the term go viral?

Funny Or Die's April 29, 2013 parody PSA "Bitchy Resting Face" was the main viral engine, pulling more than 6.2 million YouTube views over two years.

Which celebrities have talked about having RBF?

Anna Paquin discussed her bitchy resting face on Jimmy Kimmel Live on June 21, 2014, and Anna Kendrick complained about her own on The Late Late Show with James Corden on May 15, 2015.

Is there any real science behind RBF?

An NYU study by Jonathan Freeman and colleagues in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that faces with even subtle angry cues at rest are more likely to be judged as untrustworthy, which Motherboard connected to the bitchy resting face idea.

What is the "Smiling Gives You Wrinkles" image macro?

It's a series of photos of women, including Vivien Leigh, captioned "Smiling gives you wrinkles / Resting bitch face keeps you pretty," popularized by an XoVain piece on October 2, 2014 asking whether RBF prevents premature aging.

Does RBF only apply to women?

The most common cultural framing puts it on women, and Urban Dictionary calls it a condition suffered by millions of women worldwide, but the Funny Or Die sketch and later coverage included men with the same complaint.

Resting Bitch Face

2009catchphraseclassic

Published September 25, 2026

Resting Bitch Face is the term for an involuntary neutral facial expression that reads as angry, annoyed, or contemptuous even when the person feels nothing of the sort. First defined on Urban Dictionary in 2009 and pushed into wide circulation by a 2013 Funny Or Die parody PSA, it became the default shorthand for anyone whose default face looks mad.

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Overview

Resting Bitch Face, also written as Bitchy Resting Face and shortened to RBF, describes a relaxed face that other people read as hostile1. The joke works because the mismatch is one directional: the person feels neutral or even happy on the inside, but strangers keep asking if they are angry, tired, or in a fight with somebody2. Urban Dictionary entries pin it to raised eyebrows, emotionless eyes, and a slightly hard mouth line, framing it as a look most common on women who look mean by default6.

The term works as both self identification and light insult, and most of the humor sits in the self identification side. Listicles about RBF read like symptom checklists, walking through the small daily indignities of being asked to smile more, being told to cheer up, or getting free guacamole at Chipotle because employees are afraid to charge you3. That confessional format is the reason RBF stuck around as a running joke rather than a one-off video, because anyone with the face can plug their own story into the template.

By the mid 2010s the label picked up a pseudo scientific frame too, thanks to a widely covered NYU study on how tiny resemblances to happy or angry expressions change perceived trustworthiness4. That gave writers a peg to treat RBF as a real perception problem instead of a punchline, even though the underlying science was about neutral faces in general, not a diagnosis5.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Urban Dictionary (coined) / Funny Or Die (viral spread)

Date

2009

The initialism RBF was submitted to Urban Dictionary by user supersrs on August 18, 2009, defined as shorthand for "resting bitch face," an involuntary facial expression7. A longer entry from user miisty followed on April 1, 2011, describing a person "who naturally looks mean when her face is expressionless"6. Thought Catalog gave the term one of its first non dictionary write ups on July 6, 2012 with Brandon Gorrell's essay "The Overthinker's Guide to Resting Bitchface Syndrome," which walked through the party small talk trap of being asked "Hey, man, are you mad or something?" when you were fine two seconds earlier8.

While Urban Dictionary coined the tag, no single creator owns the meme, which spread as a shared complaint and got its viral engine from a video sketch rather than a specific image or post7.

How It Spread

The tipping point was a Funny Or Die parody public service announcement titled "Bitchy Resting Face," posted on April 29, 20131. The mock PSA framed the expression as a medical condition, with several women and one man describing the misunderstandings caused by their default faces. A YouTube reupload of the sketch pulled more than 6.2 million views and around 3,200 comments in its first two years1. Redditor deep-friend cross posted the sketch to r/videos on June 11, 2013, where it collected more than 2,700 votes at 89 percent upvoted before the thread was archived1.

From there the term jumped across platforms fast. A Facebook page called "Resting Bitchface Syndrome, RBS" launched June 30, 2013 and passed 5,300 likes in two years1. On May 15, 2014, the r/RestingBitchFace subreddit opened as a home for photo examples1. Celebrity anecdotes kept it in headlines: on June 21, 2014 True Blood actress Anna Paquin discussed her own "bitchy resting face" on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and on May 15, 2015 Anna Kendrick told James Corden she had the same problem on The Late Late Show1. BuzzFeed's November 9, 2014 listicle "22 Things That Only Happen To People Who Have Resting Bitchface" pulled more than 3.2 million views in the following year, running on relatable beats like "you came straight outta the womb with resting bitchface"9.

The term picked up a science-desk hook in 2016 when Motherboard published "We Don't Trust People with a Bitchy Resting Face" on June 19, 2015, citing an NYU study by Jonathan Freeman, Eric Hehman, and Jessica Flake in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin5 4. That coverage cemented RBF as a term newsrooms were willing to use in a straight headline, not just a joke.

Timeline

2009-08-18

Urban Dictionary user supersrs submits the first RBF entry, defining it as an initialism for the involuntary expression.

2011-04-01

Urban Dictionary user miisty adds a full "resting bitch face" entry describing someone who naturally looks mean at rest.

2012-07-06

Thought Catalog publishes Brandon Gorrell's "The Overthinker's Guide to Resting Bitchface Syndrome."

Resting Bitch Face

Overview

Gallery

Origin & Background

How It Spread

Frequently Asked Questions

References (10)