There’s an elephant in the kitchen of The Bear. And it’s not Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) or Luca’s (Will Poulter) tattooed biceps framing their perfectly tight tees, nor is it the real or imagined sexual tension between culinary partners Carmy and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri). There’s something more arresting afoot: Carmy’s distractingly striking blue eyes.
After the second season’s release on Hulu, jokes about the actor’s eyes flooded in. A zoomed-in photo of a television playing The Bear where Allen White’s eyes are a glowing, neon blue reads, “I’M LITERALLY SHAKING BUY HIM BROWN CONTACTS PLS,” an invocation of a comment on a TikTok of a dachshund with atypical pale blue eyes that has since become a beloved meme and copypasta across social media.
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Mind you, these memes overlapped with the king of piercing blue eyes himself, Cillian Murphy, returning to the public eye to promote the much-anticipated Oppenheimer. Murphy’s eyes are a cross between Pantone’s “Starlight blue” and “Dream blue,” but pinning them down to established shades does a disservice to their versatility and depth of color. As press for Oppenheimer dominates feeds, so does Murphy’s icy stare, making men with blue eyes inescapable this summer.
Bridget Haney, a 17-year-old student in New Jersey who posted the viral picture of Allen White told Mashable that she noticed his blue eyes while rewatching The Bear‘s second season. The series’ color grading and close-up shots of Allen White’s face do much to accentuate their otherworldliness.
The same image Haney posted was later captioned with, “My planet Arrakis is so beautiful when the sun is low,” a line from Dune (2021). If you’re lost, in the sci-fi epic there’s a psychedelic drug called spice that turns users’ eyes an unnatural blue. The trailer for Dune: Part 2, which features Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani’s (Zendaya) spice-blue eyes, came out within a week of The Bear‘s release, creating the perfect opportunity for an extended cinematic universe of blue-eye memes.
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But the blue eye memes are about more than pointing out how hot these light-eyed men are — and plenty do — they point out the unnerving nature of blue eyes. The memes run with the horror of blue eyes, treating them as something strange and unnatural, something to be covered up, but it’s all in jest.
Ivy, a 21-year-old student in New York City, posted an older photo of Murphy she found on Pinterest in which his eyes look unfathomably blue with the caption, “girl we fucking see them,” on Twitter. The phrase harkens back to one of the original blue-eyed memes: a photo of Miley Cyrus at the 2008 Grammys where her eyes pop in an unsettling way (mainly because of her heavy eyeliner). The saying became the go-to response to images where someone’s blue eyes steal the show — and your soul.
Another user replied to Ivy’s tweet with the TikTok screenshot of the uncanny dachshund and the corresponding comment. The “buy her brown contacts” meme takes on layers when applied to Murphy as he notably wore brown contacts in the film Peacock.
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Between The Bear and the imminence of Oppenheimer and Dune: Part Two, it’s all blue-eyed men all the time. To put it simply, it’s “girl, we fucking see them” summer.
The memes suggest that there’s something inherently funny about bright blue eyes. Haney likened blue eyes illuminated by the light to those of a lizard. Ivy thinks the best memes are those that are inexplicably funny. The blue eyes memes take something ordinary and make it absurd. “General silliness and light-hearted humor can go a long way, and this meme is incredibly silly and lacking in the seriousness department,” explained Ivy.
But Cynthia Marchena, the 21-year-old student in New Jersey who left the iconic “I’M LITERALLY SHAKING BUY HIM BROWN CONTACTS PLS” TikTok comment, didn’t fully see the humor of blue eyes until her comment became a meme. “It was just the dog [having blue eyes] that I found funny. That dog looks like a Disney princess,” she told Mashable. “Ever since it’s been used for other people like Taylor Swift pictures, oh my god, I think it’s so funny. ”
When asked about what inspired her to post the tweet, Ivy waxed poetic about Murphy’s eyes. “I’ve seen plenty of celebrities with prominent blue eyes, but there’s something about Cillian’s that is especially captivating. I think they contribute to his enigmatic and intense allure,” she told Mashable.
Others see the memes less as a celebration of blue eyes and more as a subversion of Western beauty standards that have long upheld whiteness and blue eyes as the ideal. Haney recalled how badly she wanted blue eyes as a child when she speculated about the meme’s popularity.
“Since there’s a favoritism of blue eyes and so many aspire to have blue eyes, it makes sense that blue eyes are such a focus of meme culture,” said Haney. Marchena echoed her sentiment: “No offense to anybody who has blue eyes, because they’re so pretty. But it’s just hilarious to take the eyes off that pedestal and make it a joke now.”
Jamie Green, a 25-year-old illustrator in the Chicago area, posted a “grotesque” drawing of Carmy accentuating his “giant blue orbs” to Twitter with the caption, “Can you watch him while I go to the store and get him some brown contacts.”
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“Not until the memes came out did I realize that not only does Carmy have the horrifically blue eyes, but Cousin [Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach)] does too,” Green told Mashable.
For Green, the memes recognize the relatability of experience of being on the receiving end a piercing blue stare. “We’ve all made eye contact with a barista and they’re looking a little too deep into your soul, and nobody’s talking about it. Once the memes started, then we all came together as a people to bring down the people with bright blue eyes,” Green said.
“It’s a timeless meme. Blue eyes are never going to stop being funny,” said Green.
