The Mouth Eyes meme belongs to the broader category of 'Cursed Images' and surrealist internet humor, where facial features are swapped or multiplied to create an uncanny, unsettling effect. While the specific Eye-Mouth-Eye (👁️👄👁️) emoji sequence became a viral sensation on TikTok and Twitter in 2020 to represent a stunned or awkward stare, the photoshopped images of faces with mouths for eyes date back much further to early 2010s Tumblr and Reddit. These images are designed to trigger a sense of visual discomfort, making them the perfect reaction for situations that are weird, gross, or inexplicably haunting.