Photo: SDI Productions / E+ / Getty Images
Photo Credit: Getty Images
A middle and high school teacher in Texas is addressing a new trend she's noticing among her students called "mewing.” On her TikTok page, which has garnered over 6.5-million views, Teresa Newman warns, "I think this 'mewing' trend with students is probably gonna be the final reason that I decide to never return to the classroom to teach ever again." Mewing, originally a viral technique for face shaping, has evolved into a dismissive gesture, with students using it to avoid participating in class discussions. Teresa explains, "[Mewing is] a gesture that kids are making toward other people that signals to that person that they don't care what they have to say, or they're too busy being silent doing the mewing technique to respond to them." She emphasized that despite its seemingly harmless nature, mewing disrupts the learning environment and undermines teachers' efforts to engage students.