Sanpaku Eyes

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Published August 1, 2026

Sanpaku Eyes is a Japanese superstition about eyes where the whites show above or below the iris, turned into an exploitable Reddit image macro in December 2013. The format pairs a labeled eye diagram with celebrities and controversial figures to imply a prediction about their fate, and it resurfaces on TikTok every time a matching celebrity dies.

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Overview

Sanpaku Eyes refers to a Japanese term (三白眼, literally "three whites") for eyes where the sclera shows either above or below the iris even when a person is looking straight ahead1. Online, the concept turned into an exploitable image macro built around a labeled diagram of "normal" versus lower and upper sanpaku eyes, then applied to celebrities like Robert Pattinson and John F. Kennedy to imply the superstition fits them1.

The look carries a specific claim from Japanese and Chinese face reading. Whites visible below the iris supposedly mean the outside world poses a risk to the person, causing accidents or an early death, while whites above the iris allegedly point to mental imbalance and violent tendencies2. That framing gives the meme its hook: it gets applied to real people whose lives seem to fit the pattern in hindsight.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit (2013 diagram meme) / TikTok (2022 viral spread)
Creator
Reddit user FigurativelyAdolf
Date
2013

The Japanese superstition itself is old, but it reached Western audiences through Japanese educator George Ohsawa, who published You Are All Sanpaku in 1965 and predicted early deaths for Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy based on their lower-white eyes2. Ohsawa tied the trait to his macrobiotic teachings, arguing that meals heavy in whole grains and vegetables could soften the supposed effects2.

The meme format traces to December 11, 2013, when Redditor FigurativelyAdolf posted a diagram pairing the sanpaku explainer with photos of serial killers and other controversial figures whose eyes matched the pattern3. The account was later deleted, but the image kept circulating as a template that later posters swapped new faces into.

How It Spread

Sanpaku references kept resurfacing across meme communities year after year. Anime fans latched onto the term because so many character designs feature exaggerated lower whites, and SK Desu published a full explainer that lists anime characters alongside Charles Manson, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson, and Elvis Presley as sanpaku examples2.

TikTok gave the meme its biggest boost in 2022. TikToker @hey_rey0 posted a video walking through celebrities with sanpaku eyes that pulled over 13.9 million views within three months, plus a follow-up specifically about rapper Takeoff that topped 700,000 views in three days3. The pattern brought the concept back into rotation across Reddit and Twitter each time it circulated.

Rapper Takeoff's death on November 1, 2022, sparked a fresh wave of posts that pointed out his lower sanpaku eyes and drew the same superstition connection Ohsawa had drawn about Monroe and Kennedy nearly sixty years earlier1. The meme keeps cycling back on the same trigger: a celebrity with visible lower whites dies, and users repost the diagram.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically starts with the labeled sanpaku diagram at the top: a "normal" eye reference, then a lower sanpaku example and often an upper sanpaku example below. Users swap in celebrity photos, historical figures, or fictional characters and let the eye-position labels imply a prediction about the person's fate or mental state1.

Frequently Asked Questions