'Math lady' is still in the spotlight 22 years after viral meme but you might not recognize her
It's an image that most of us have come across on the internet at some point - a woman looking more confused as increasingly complex mathematical equations start to appear around her.
The meme has become known as 'Math Lady', and is used to symbolize growing confusion, lack of understanding, or someone over-complicating something.
It features Brazilian actor Renata Sorrah, and originally stems from a scene from the 2004 Brazilian TV show Senhora do Destino (Lady of the Destiny), in which she played villain Nazaré Tedesco.
A GIF from the show began to circulate on social media in Brazil in around 2013, with the moment in question showing Tedesco mulling things over while in jail.
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It then started to be shared around the world outside of Brazil, becoming the popular meme that it is now.
Sorrah had already had a distinguished career before becoming an internet meme, and had a muted reaction to its popularity, telling Brazilian magazine Quem in 2024: "My nephew, who lives in New York, tells everybody that his aunt is the Math Lady, and everybody gets crazy.
"But sometimes it's terrible. I remember once, in a festival in Curitiba [a city in south Brazil], that I went through a bar full of young men and I heard: 'Look there, it's that meme lady'.
"We are working hard, doing theater, exhausted... to become 'the meme lady'. I don't have control of it, but it doesn't bother me."
Sorrah remains a highly successful actor, and is now taking on a role in a newly released soap opera Por Você ('For You'), though she's changed a lot since 2004 and may not be immediately recognizable to viewers even despite the fact her face has been used in countless group chats across the globe.
The new role sees Sorrah playing Pérola, the mother of a villain Vanessa - a career first for the actor.
She's opened up about her approach to the role, telling noticias da TV [translated from Portuguese]: "I'm taking this construction very carefully. She loves the daughter, but until when?"
She went on to consider some of the interesting questions that it poses, saying: "Is a mother's love forever? Is it unconditional? Can she do what she wants, or will her mother always accept it?"
She added: "I think that Pérola loves Vanessa, she loves the daughter, but her great dream is to achieve changing her, to turn her into a better person. And this, I don't know if she will achieve it."
Sorrah also opened up about the tension in the relationship between a mother and a child, in particular when a parent might feel that deep parental love, but not necessarily like who their child has become as a person.
"It's a very difficult relationship," she said. "To not admire her daughter. She loves the daughter, likes her, wants her to take care, and if she asks: 'Where did I go wrong? Where did it not work out? Why has she turned into this woman?'"
Sorrah, 79, also spoke about how she is still trying to remain curious, and hopes that she will always continue to learn.
"It's always good to learn, to continue to learn, to always be open," she said. "The day you say 'I know everything', it's over, there's no fun. The fun is that you are always opening windows, doors, breathing in and saying 'look, how interesting, look how good'."
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Social Media
Kit Roberts