About
Math Lady / Confused Lady refers to pictures or gifs of Brazilian actress Renata Sorrah[1] playing Nazaré Tedesco in a scene from the telenovela, Senhora do Destino. The pictures are often used as reaction images to express confusion.
Origin
Tedesco is a very popular character from the telenovela “Senhora do Destino”, in Brazil. Because of her comical personality images of her have been photoshopped into reaction images and image macros. On Facebook, there is a fan page devoted to posting such pictures of her.[2] The earliest known example of the original gif (shown below) being used as a reaction image is from October 31st, 2013, when UKMix forum poster CrazyCrazy posted the gif with the caption “I’m sure there is better music to hear while you wait for Beywance…”[3]
The gif originated the following video:
Spread
The gif saw light use as a reaction image over the next two and a half years. It began growing in popularity around the summer of 2016. Buzzfeed Portugal[4] included it as a reaction image in a “top post” on July 29th. A popular post on 9Gag[5] featured four screenshots from the gif of Sorrah with math equations over her face, captioned “when she tells you she’s 29 weeks pregnant.” The post has over 33,000 points as of October 11th, 2016.
After the math symbols were added, the image and gif surged in popularity, particularly on Brazilian parts of social media, before it grew popular worldwide. On October 2nd, a thread appeared on /r/OutOfTheLoop[6] asking about its origins.
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]Wikipedia – Renata Sorrah
[2]Facebook – Nazaré Sincera
[3]UK Mix – The UKMIXGIF Thread, Page 700
[4]Buzzfeed Portugal – 14 histórias que mostram a capacidade infantil de fazer bosta em toda sua glória
[5]9gag – Just Say It In Months, God Damn It
[6]/r/outoftheloop – Where is this meme (confused woman with math equations) from?