A mom has discovered the adorable origins of her 17-month-old daughter’s distinctive new way of smiling.
Research suggests there are some benefits to smiling, even when you aren’t all that happy.
A 2022 global study involving 3,878 participants from 19 different countries proved as much. The research, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, set out to determine whether happy facial expressions influenced positive feelings.
Participants were given a series of tasks in which they were asked to adopt happy or neutral facial expressions. In each instance, they were tasked with maintaining their assigned pose for five seconds.
After each task, they completed questionnaires to determine their levels of happiness. Researchers found that instances where a smile was either copied from a picture or came via voluntary movement was clearly associated with greater levels of happiness.
Arielle Gonzalez and her fiancé from Massachusetts have had plenty to smile about since the birth of her daughter Lyla, some 17 months ago. “I was told as a teenager I may not be able to have children so she is our miracle,” Gonzalez told Newsweek. “She loves music, dogs, and being outside.”
However, lately Lyla has been making people smile on social media for unexpected reasons, after Gonzalez uploaded a sweet and funny video to TikTok under the handle @ariellegonzalezz showcasing her daughter’s “weird” new way of smiling and the unexpected inspiration behind it.
“Last month Lyla started to smile differently at us,” Gonzalez said. “I wondered where she learned it.” It didn’t take her too long to find out the source: the music video to the Sabrina Carpenter hit “Please Please Please.”
But while that might sound like a surprising source to some, Gonzalez was not all that taken aback to discover it.
@ariellegonzalezz
“We play music all day long if we are home or in the car and when music isn’t playing, Lyla is asking for some to be on. I grew up watching TRL [Total Request Live] every afternoon and I always loved music videos and introducing them to Lyla has been so fun,” she said. “We had the music video on one day and she looked back at me while she copied Sabrina’s timing and smile.”
Eager to capture Lyla’s odd but undeniably cute smile, Gonzalez bided her time, waiting for the next time the promo came on to try and record her daughter’s response.
She didn’t necessarily know if Lyla would do it again of course. “I thought it was a one-off so I decided to record her next time I played it and realized she was doing it every time,” she said. “I decided to record her every time I put it on to show her dad a compilation of them.”
According to Gonzalez, both she and her daughter are big fans of Carpenter.
“We love her songs and Lyla asks for ‘spresso’ aka Espresso all day long,” she said. “We put a mix on YouTube and go through Sabrina’s music videos and sing and dance every day. Lyla also loves Taylor [Swift] and Ariana [Grande] just like her mama.”
So she was understandably excited when the video went viral, amassing 7.8 million views and thousands of comments, including one from Carpenter herself. “Stop, she’s everything,” Carpenter wrote.
Gonzalez was left stunned by the response: “I thought it was amazing. Of course we never thought it would reach so many people, especially her,” she said.
All of which has left everyone in the Gonzalez household smiling.
