Contempt Costanza / George Costanza Reaction Face

About

Contempt Costanza is a reaction image based on a stillshot of the Seinfeld character George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander) with a look of contempt on his face. On 4chan, it is typically used to express disapproval in similar vein of O RLY. It has been also photoshopped into a series of custom illustrations depicting various fictional characters from popular TV shows and films.

Origin

Jason Alexander, most well-known for his role as “George Costanza” in the 90s TV sitcom Seinefeld, has been a subject of 4chan’s /co/^[1] exploits as early as in February 2009.

The smirking image is derived from the 143rd episode of Seinfeld titled “The Abstinence”^[2] originally aired on November 21st, 1996. In the episode, Costanza strikes up a brief exchange with two New York Yankees players at the batting cage. When Derek Jeter boasts that they won the World Series, Costanza makes the face, laughs at them and says “Yeah… in six games.”

According to several accounts^[3], Costanza’s reaction face was popularized through 4chan’s /sp/ (sports) board in 2011, posted in a discussion thread about whether ketchup should be kept refrigerated or at room temperature. The earliest archived example can be found in a /jp/ (Japan-related) thread titled “Japan Tsunami Game Thread Part One.”^[4]

Usage

The reaction image subsequently spread across other sections of the site, most notably through /v/^[5] (videogame), /co/^[6] (cartoon & anime) and /mu/^[7] (music) boards. Each character portrait is typically accompanied by a short sentence indicating what he/she is expressing contempt for. For example, a Batman version of George Costanza face would read “committing crimes” next to it. It is also associated with > implying replies.

When one disagrees with a Costanza thread, a horizontally flipped version of the original Costanza image may be used to incite a Combo, given that it is posted to the thread quickly enough to bypass the duplicate image filter. A small subsection of the people who post this refer to it as ‘kramer.jpg’, but both seem to be acceptable.