Vlogger and science enthusiast Hank Green decided to shed some light on the topic, but his explanation left some wishing they hadn't asked.
Hank responded to a TikToker who proudly showcased his chin dimples and curiously inquired, 'What is this thing?' Now, he might regret asking.
TikTok users were 'disturbed' to learn that chin dimples are actually caused by slightly scary-looking facial muscles below the mouth that poke into the skin.
"You have correctly identified a weird muscle, well done," he said.
"Almost every muscle in your body connects a bone to another bone.
"Your bones yank on each other and that's how you move.
"There are other muscles, like sphincters, that just yank on themselves.
"The heart is a totally different kind of muscle that also yanks on itself to pump your blood around."
Green continued: "In our faces, we have a bunch of muscles that do not connect to other bones"."
"You can tell this, right? Like, all the movement that faces do, we that we can talk and emote and stuff - we're not yanking on bones here. We're yanking on skin."
Here's where it starts to get a bit unpleasant. According to the social media star, the mentalis muscle connects from the bone to the skin, resulting in dimples on your skin when you flex it.
"You can see the mentalis here, doing an absolutely wild thing, sticking all of its little muscle fibers into your skin", he added sharing a horrific picture of the muscle growing from the skull.
"When you contract that muscle, it yanks. It yanks on the skin and makes those little dimples"
"It's a little weird. We're all made out of meat", he swiftly concluded.
The revelation left many feeling uneasy about the existence of those purple fibers in their chins. Hank's followers flooded the comments section with their disgust, expressing that they could have lived their whole lives without knowing this information.
Some person commented: I took a picture of myself making that face and it was literally the worst phot I've ever taken in my entire life. so....thanks. I hate everything.
Another said: I always wondered about that but I figured the musculature of the face was weird enough to somehow explain that
Some else added: The fact that we both did it together at the end made me lose my miiiijnd i did it out of reflex
Another commented. Is that why some people get dimples when smiling?
