Yao Ming Face — Black and white rage comic drawing of Yao Ming laughing dismissively

Yao Ming Face

2010reaction imageclassic

Published October 8, 2026

Yao Ming Face, also known as Fuck That Guy, is a rage comic style line drawing of NBA star Yao Ming wearing a wide, mocking grin. Reddit artist downlow sketched it in July 2010 from a 2009 press conference still and dumped it into a pile of unused comic parts, where other redditors instantly keyed in on it as the perfect face for saying 'bitch please.' Within a year it became one of the signature dismissive reaction faces of the Reddit rage comic era.

rage comics dismissal memes reaction memes facial expression memes subreddit origin memes

Overview

The image is a crude black and white contour sketch of basketball player Yao Ming mid laugh, with wrinkled eyes, a wide open mouth and a hand sometimes added for emphasis. It is dropped into rage comics or reply threads whenever a user wants to shoot down someone else's take, usually right after one upping them with a better anecdote or fact1. The tone sits somewhere between smug and openly contemptuous, which is why it got read as the character silently saying 'bitch please' almost immediately after it was posted1.

The face shows up in a few distinct flavors. 'Dumb bitch' versions were used in misogynistic punchline comics, while the 'fuck that' variant is lighter, used to brush off anything from spiders to inconvenient chores5. A derivative called 'Fuck No' Guy, drawn by Reddit user wholemilk in October 2010, redraws Yao with the same open mouth but twisted into disgust or horror instead of laughter5. Later Reddit habits included users photographing themselves pulling the Yao Ming expression next to the original drawing for extra effect5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit (r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu)
Creator
downlow
Date
2010

The source material is a still from a Houston Rockets post game press conference in May 2009. Around the 18 second mark of the clip, Yao Ming breaks into the exaggerated grin after teammate Ron Artest walks away from the podium2. The drawing itself appeared on July 11th, 2010, when Reddit user downlow posted a scrapbook of unused rage comic sketches to r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu, with the Yao face buried among them1. In the comments, downlow confirmed he had traced it from a screencap of the press conference3.

In the same thread, redditor alkalait replied that the face looked like it was saying 'bitch please,' and the caption stuck fast enough to become the drawing's unofficial name within weeks1. downlow had not drawn it as a standalone meme, which is why early labels, 'Asian Laughing Guy,' 'dumb bitch,' 'fuck that shit face guy,' kept changing before the community settled on 'Fuck That Guy'45.

How It Spread

The face left the scrapbook thread fast. On August 31st, 2010, it was folded into an updated rage comic template post on r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu, where redditor wallish nicknamed it 'Asian Laughing Guy' in the comments4. A September 13th, 2010 rage comic by user fifa10 paired the drawing with the caption 'dumb bitch,' and that label stuck through late 2010 and into early 20115.

The name shift happened in two steps. On February 19th, 2011, a comic by redditor nagem titled 'I let my 7 year old cousin use the rage editor and this is what she made' reached the r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu front page with nearly 4,000 upvotes, and commenter chotheamazing coined 'fuck that shit face guy' underneath it5. On May 23rd of that year, the subreddit's official rage face reference guide swapped the drawing's old 'dumb bitch' label for 'fuck that shit,' effectively renaming it community wide7.

In April 2011, redditor punkhobo kicked off the spider burning subgenre, a run of comics where Yao Ming reacts to finding a spider by setting the whole house on fire6. From Reddit the face spread to Tumblr, FunnyJunk and Memebase, and a dedicated Facebook page 'Yao Ming (Face)' had pulled in 44,628 likes by February 20115.

Timeline

2009-05

Yao Ming makes the grinning face at a Houston Rockets post game press conference after Ron Artest walks off camera.

2010-07-11

Reddit artist downlow posts the traced drawing to r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu in a dump of unused rage comic sketches. Commenter alkalait coins the 'bitch please' reading.

2010-08-31

The face is added to an updated rage comic template on r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu, where redditor wallish calls it 'Asian Laughing Guy.'

2010-09-13

Redditor fifa10 posts the first widely shared rage comic using the face with the 'dumb bitch' caption.

2010-10-06

Redditor wholemilk draws 'Fuck No' Guy, a disgusted variant of the face, in a 'take out the trash' rage comic.

2011-02-19

A front page comic by nagem triggers the 'fuck that shit face guy' rename in the comments.

2011-04

Punkhobo's spider rage comic kicks off a wave of 'burn down the house to kill a spider' Yao Ming comics.

2011-05-23

The r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu rage face reference guide replaces the 'dumb bitch' label with 'fuck that shit.'

How to Use This Meme

The typical setup is a two panel reply or rage comic where another character says something boastful, naive or annoying, and Yao Ming's grinning face lands in the next panel with a short caption like 'bitch please' or 'fuck that.' Comics often use it to cap one upping stories, dismiss low effort complaints or torch a minor inconvenience, as in the April 2011 wave of comics where redditors burn their own houses down to kill a single spider6.

Frequently Asked Questions