The Brief: Creators typically squint their eyes and poke out their lips on TikTok to represent overly confident and cocky men.
DEEP DIVE
When TikTokers squint their eyes, move their heads from side to side, poke out their mouths, lick their lips, grab their chins and/or rubs their hands together, it is to represent a player and/or fuccboi.
This combination of movements has been around for years to represent men who are players and smooth talkers. In many cases, the squinting of the eyes is also used to reference lightskin or biracial Black men.
This stems from a running joke in the Black community that pokes fun at colorist ideals that lightskin and biracial Black people are closer to European, and as a result, more approachable, likeable, and better looking. The aforementioned mannerisms poke fun at these ideals because it represents lightskins doing mundane things in a “sexy” manner.
For example, Twitter users poked fun at dogs who squinted their eyes by calling them lightskin.
On God I swear I got the most lightskinned dog ever.
*iphone whisper ink* he’s on IG @runafterrio pic.twitter.com/udQOkD1ekE
— Charlamagay (@writelikeryan) February 19, 2019
Lightskin dog pic.twitter.com/8lvOg0kqBT
— Freek Az (@freekazou) April 17, 2021
On TikTok, the squinting of the eyes has grown in popularity. It pokes fun at overly cocky, confident, and/or smooth guys.
@josh1morris Ayo he valid⁉️@jordan1morris