hamster angle

Pixabay

Hamsters have cute, chubby cheeks. When they stuff ’em with food, their even cuter and chubbier. So, someone with a round face is sometimes compared to a hamster and called hamster face. This epithet can be affectionate, self-deprecating, or insulting.

Dk jawline and hoshi cute hamster face can kill me pic.twitter.com/kETfHtRXQ4

— tia 🕊 – rest (@ult17joshua) January 28, 2019

Now, most people like to to put their best foot forward on social media, posting only their finest selfies. Enter duck lips.

Also enter the problem of the hamster angle, which describes how, when angled from below, a cellphone camera can make sometime’s face look rounder, squishier, and chubbier. The hamster angle is one that people generally regard as undesirable. (This is why people often take selfies angled from above.)

9GAG

On May 28, 2019, hamster angle was added to Urban Dictionary, whose Twitter account tweeted it out on May 30. These are not the first appearances of the phrase, however.

Hamster Angle – https://t.co/5n8Ko6HaZR pic.twitter.com/0wxSsBiwdn

— Urban Dictionary (@urbandictionary) May 30, 2019

We can find scattered search interest in hamster angle on Google Trends in 2013 and occasional instances of the phrase on Twitter starting in 2011. It’s been used for all sorts of random, idiosyncratic things unrelated to its unflattering selfie sense.