

Among the slew of pop culture icons said to be afflicted with so-called Resting Bitch Face (alternatively known as Bitchy Resting Face), the vast majority are women, though Kanye West is among the male examples. All of them have been mocked by internet commenters for having a certain unintentional expression when their faces are not in motion - a look best described as vaguely annoyed, maybe a little judgy, perhaps slightly bored.

Since the RBF meme took over the internet in 2013, fueled by a viral mock-PSA about "Bitchy Resting Face," legions of people have identified the dreaded phenomenon in celebrity listicles, in their own social circles, even in the mirror.



"We wanted this to be fun and kind of tongue-in-cheek, but also to have legitimate scientific data backing it up," Macbeth said.


To establish a baseline, Rogers and Macbeth first had FaceReader asses a series of genuinely expressionless faces. Those expressions registered about 97 percent neutrality, Macbeth said; the remaining three percent included "little blips of emotion" - a touch of sadness here, a hint of surprise there, but nothing significant.


One particular emotion was responsible for the jump: "The big change in percentage came from 'contempt,'" Macbeth said.


It's in subtle signals, like "one side of the lip pulled back slightly, the eyes squinting a little," Rogers explained.

Or: "It's kind of a tightening around the eyes, and a little bit of raising of the corners of the lips -- but not into a smile," Macbeth suggested.


The cues are understated, yet the machine detects and interprets them the same way our human brains do, she said. "Something in the neutral expression of the face is relaying contempt, both to the software and to us."



"When she was younger, directors would say, 'Why don't you smile more, you need to smile more, you don't seem like you're very happy,'" Macbeth said. "That's something that's expected from women far more than it's expected from men, and there's a lot of anecdotal articles and scientific literature on that. So RBF isn't necessarily something that occurs more in women, but we're more attuned to notice it in women because women have more pressure on them to be happy and smiley and to get along with others."

Worried that you might have RBF? Now you can find out for sure. After publishing their results in October, Rogers and Macbeth invited members of the public to submit their own faces for analysis. Guys and gals alike are welcome to email photos of their most "neutral" facial expressions to jason@noldus.com, and FaceReader will tell you if you're actually expressionless - or if you and the queen have RBF in common.