About
Sturgeon Face is a participatory photo meme that involves turning down one’s corners of mouth so that it forms an excessive frown. This is not to be confused with Trout Pout.
Origin
On May 27, 2007, a single-serving site known as sturgeonface.com was created by a person only known by the alias “guy” from the email address listed on the bottom of the site page. Its sole purpose was to be a compilation of several pictures of individuals, animals, and other miscellaneous things frowning quite extensively. The name of the site dubbed the facial expression: “Sturgeon Face”.
Early Spread
The term first comes into usage on August 25, 2007 when flickr user, Veronica Belmont, attempts to make the face for this photograph:
It is later referenced on a women’s website known as TrèsSugar under the title, Sturgeon Face: It’s Not Pretty on August 29 of the same year.
It was also mentioned a few times on 2008 but it wouldn’t reach significant popularity until the year after.
Uncoached.com
On March 5, 2009, Uncoached, a men’s website, hosted the article Know what a Sturgeon Face is? Well Here’s a Whole Gallery of Them which linked to the original site and explained the phenomenon just like TrèsSugar did those two years ago.
After its appearance on that site, it exploded into popularity and started getting referenced in other blogs and websites such as The Chive, The Daily Dish, The Presurfer, UKCS, J-Walk Blog, etc. all in the same year.
It was even referenced by MemeFactory and given a definition on Urban Dictionary and much more.
Name Controversy
Though the frown is called Sturgeon Face and based off the fish, a sturgeon’s face, as shown below, doesn’t exactly resemble anything close to a frown.
Pictured below is what an actual sturgeon’s mouth looks like:
