Surprised Shaq

Episode with spicy wings

Hot Ones is a YouTube interview show in which the guest answers questions while eating chicken wings with sauces that get hotter and hotter. The episode with Shaquille O'Neal aired on March 14, 2019, produced by the studio First We Feast, and was titled “Shaq Tries to Not Make a Face While Eating Spicy Wings.” The title builds suspense: the viewer wonders whether the hero will manage to hold back.

The image comes from this episode. The format's joke is built on the guest's struggle with his own reaction, and a single freeze frame gradually separated from the context of the episode and became the basis of a template.

What is visible in the picture

The background is completely black, so attention focuses on the face. A man in a light blue sweater looks straight into the camera, his eyes wide open, eyebrows raised, lips pursed into a round “o.” In the lower left corner a hand is visible with its fingers bent, as if he is explaining something or pushing something away. In the lower right corner, on a shoulder, there is a round badge with a face in a horned helmet and a yellow beard, the emblem of the show.

The meme's name and the show's emblem point to the Hot Ones episode, but the snapshot itself does not contain a name. For the template this does not matter: it works with the expression, not with the biography.

How surprise became a template

According to summaries of the meme's history, in the following weeks Instagram users began making video edits with the guest's facial expressions. The earliest known one is attributed to the user bepis.man and dated March 22, 2019. In the following days, March 22–24, other edits appeared as well.

On March 25 the website Ebaum's World launched a Photoshop contest based on a frame from the episode, and the image stopped being just a moment from an interview. On April 2, 2019 a Reddit user posted a post with this expression, which became one of the first popular examples of its use as a reaction. After that the image began to be used for unexpected news, complicated bills, and strange turns in conversation.

Examples of captions and their mechanics

Example 1: “Monday was declared a day off, but nobody noticed it on the calendar.” The reason for the surprise is placed at the end, and the face plays the role of a reaction to the absurd.

Example 2: “Chose tea without sugar, and inside it turned out to be a sweet filling.” The contrast between expectation and result works: the face looks like the conclusion of a failed experiment.

Example 3: “Looked at the grocery receipt after I had already added it up in my head.” The surprise looks too strong for the amount, and the gap between the scale of the reaction and its cause creates the humor.

Example 4: “They said there would be no more lateness, and then a bus arrived with the Saturday schedule.” Expectation collides with absurdity, while the reaction is calm in form.

Tips for choosing a caption

The image works best for unexpected news, minor glitches, and situations where the surprise can be admitted out loud. It works poorly if the caption implies that the hero said or did something that is not visible in the frame. For accuracy it is better to write about the event rather than attribute specific words to the person.

To make the joke sound fresh, it helps to cut the caption down to one specific fact. Long explanations usually ruin the effect: the facial expression works quickly, and the caption should only indicate what it is directed at.