The Smiling Dolphin meme features a photo of a Yangtze finless porpoise with a slight smile and is used to express awkwardness or frustration. The image of the creature first appeared online in 2023 but didn’t become a reaction meme until September 2024.
The new meme format spread rapidly on Twitter and went on into October as people used it to explain how they feel at work meetings or the dentist, when a polite smile might be necessary to hide one’s true emotions.
What is this Smiling Dolphin meme?
The meme is a simple reaction image that fits well with a “me when” type of caption. It shows the species of porpoise, which sports an unusual bump on its forehead and no beak, floating in the water from around the neck up (if porpoises can be considered to have a neck).
Without the typical dolphin beak that often results in the appearance of a mischievous grin, the Yangtze finless porpoise instead looks like it’s giving a tired, strained smile that might be given out of politeness, social discomfort, or even a kind of exhausted pity.
Twitter accounts have used this meme to show the kind of smile you might give while someone is explaining something you’ll never remember, or when you realize it’s not at all necessary for you to be at the meeting you’re attending, or when someone is thoroughly demonstrating that they missed the point even though it’s right there.
Tell me more about the Yangtze finless porpoise
Also known as Neophocaena Asiaeorientalis, this porpoise makes its home in rivers and, as its name suggests, lacks a dorsal fin. Their pods usually number just three to six members and they tend to be shy around humans.
Although porpoises are not really dolphins but are only described as dolphin-like, both animals belong to the infraorder cetacean. Porpoises are a type of toothed whale closely related to the narwhal and typically have a rounded head and lack the dolphin’s beak.
The porpoise in the meme was also named after its habitat—the Yangtze River in China. The rare freshwater cetacean is currently critically endangered due to pollution, river damning, overfishing, and other human activities.
Origins of the Smiling Dolphin meme
The earliest known use of the Yangtze finless porpoise in the meme was found on a forum called Zoo Chat. A member going by amur leopard uploaded the photo on August 11, 2023. There, it gained over 1,200 views and a single five-star rating.
The first person to use the photo from Zoo Chat on Twitter was @flughey, who reposted it in a quote tweet to respond to someone commenting on how odd many cetaceans look. That was on September 24, 2024, and one day later user @yc appropriated the image to express how they felt reading up on news about New York Mayor Eric Adams.
By the following day, the porpoise was all over people’s feeds like it was the new Moo Deng.
Smiling Dolphin meme examples
More animal memes:
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- Melania Trump’s infamous whale tweet is now a giraffe, and people are losing it
- Move over Moo Deng, Baby Pesto the gigantic king penguin is here
- Just 29 iconic Moo Deng the hippo memes
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