So you're the Only Sane Man, and the lunatics around you are once again doing something to make you question your faith in humanity. *sighs* It may not solve anything, but your hand to the forehead will have the dual benefit of temporarily obscuring your vision of the idiocy as well as cradling the on-coming headache. Variations occur, from pinching the bridge of one's nose to slapping one's forehead. One may also slap the forehead, sliding the palm of the hand down the face, possibly with a look of exasperation. If they're wearing a hat, expect them to pull the brim of the hat over their eyes in disgust. If they're wearing a cloak or a hoodie, then they're pulling the cowl before their face.
Sometimes there is a distinction between the forehead facepalm (for irritating moments) and the full-face version (humiliation). There's also the Double Face Palm◊: "When the Fail is so strong, one Face Palm is not enough." The alternative Double Face Palm is grasping one's head with both palms, as Picard did in "The Offspring". Some people even have gone meta, inserting "*picture of French Enterprise captain*" in their forum posts.
Needless to say, it's also prevalent inReal Life. And it's universal, a wide range of cultures seem to have some variety of this.
A variation is "headdesk", in which the character is sitting behind a desk or table and slams his forehead down onto it. In particularly extreme cases, these actions can also be combined to perform a *facepalmheaddesk* maneuver.
See: Surrounded by Idiots, Only Sane Man, and The Take. Also look at Aside Glance. May be combined with I Need a Freaking Drink.
Closely related to Headdesk and Face Fault, and may be accompanied by the line "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Not directly related to Face Palm of Doom, in which you attack by placing your palm on someone else's face.
Applying a Dope Slap is often a form of ready relief for the headaches that cause a Face Palm.
Examples
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Advertising
Jack in the Box. Jack and others facepalm themselves and/or massage their heads in various commercials.
V-8 vegetable juice used a campaign for quite a while that involved people dealing themselves the forehead slap version when they realized "Duh, I could have had a V-8!" The campaign was later revived with other people delivering a forehead variant of the Dope Slap to the person who didn't eat their vegetables and the tagline changed to You could have had a V-8!".
Anime & Manga
There are giant montages available on certain image boards consisting of nothing but anime characters facepalming. There are montages of facepalm pictures that, once zoomed out enough, look like Picard facepalming. Such as this.◊
Lawrence does this quite frequently in Spice and Wolf for any given reason although usually in response to Holo. Holo herself has a half a minute long face palm in in the first OVA in response in response to Lawrence's description of how sheep are used for torture.
In Full Metal Panic!, several characters have been shown or described to have done this in reaction to Sôsuke's actions or outlandish conclusions. Most commonly done by Mao, Kurz, and Kaname.
In chapter 5 of Sensual Phrase one of Sakuya's fellow band mates reacts this way when he states that he wants to use Aine in a music video. In chapter 7, another one of Sakuya's fellow band mates has this reaction at Sakuya's less than subtle remark of taking Aine to his room when she passed out from drinking too much.
Kuroshitsuji: Ciel in season 2 episode 3, when Sebastian has a moment of adoration over stray kitties and ignores the task at hand to do so.
Kuroko does the headdesk variation in To Aru Kagaku No Railgun when the usually-straightforward, no-nonsense titular character (who is also her crush) lure the gangmembers with innocent charm. The charm works though. Kuroko hits her head against hard objects hard enough to shake them, and she does it often enough to become a Running Gag. It's a wonder she doesn't suffer from any injuries.
Inu-Yasha's reaction to Kagome's suggestion to break out of Tokajin's kitchen. Here
Fruits Basket: Yuki does it at the end of this clip after Hatsuharu changes back from black Haru and asks why he's so exhausted.
In Tiger & Bunny, this is Barnaby's reaction to Kotetsu's massively botched attempt at performing the simple act of picking up a dropped pen...accidentally kicking it into the path of an oncoming car.
Otani of Lovely Complex does this in episode 24 after seeing Koizumi's Epic Fail at being a model.
Germany of Axis Powers Hetalia does this in World Series episode 35 in response to seeing Italy walk around naked.
Sharon of Pandora Hearts does this in the second omake when Gil is supposed to be making a soulful declaration to Alice to prepare her for womanhood but he just does it to Oz instead.
Kiniro No Corda: Hino in episode 15 during an argument between everybody about eavesdropping. Also, in the same episode Tsuchiura does this when Hihara gets mistaken for being Hino's boyfriend.
One Piece : When Luffy accepted to escort Vivi to Alabasta in spite of the crew being on Baroque Works' deathlist, Nami facepalmed in exasperation.
Arts
Plate 10 of William Hogarth's Industry and Idleness series of prints shows industrious 'prentice Francis Goodchild, now Alderman of London, doing this as his idle counterpart Tom Idle is brought before him on charges of highway robbery and murder.
Comic Books
Preacher: Sheriff Root frequently does this in reaction to his son Arseface.
Taskmaster has done this towards Deadpool, such as when Wade pays him via ATM.
The psychiatrist in Watchmenfacepalms◊ after a session with Rorschach.
Brother Warth, a typically pacifistic member of the Blue Lantern Corps, facepalms in an issue of Green Lantern when people get into a fight despite his efforts.
In The Dresden Files prequel comic, "Welcome to the Jungle," Lt. Murphy does this after Dresden tells her something uselessly mystic and vague about the case. In the RPG rulebook, this panel is used with the side comment by Dresden: "I make her do this way too much."
Comic Strips
In Calvin And Hobbes, at the end of a Horrible Camping Trip where it rained all week, Calvin's dad has just packed everything up when the rain stops. Cue wap.
There's a strip where Garfield is facepalming for no reason. Jon asks him what he's doing, and Garfield replies, "Practicing being exasperated." Jon notices he's not wearing pants, and Garfield puts his practice to good use.
In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Haruhi facepalms after realizing that Kyon's gotten himself in trouble with the School Council by hanging Yamane Jun out of a window.
Green Goblin's drugged antics make Spider-Man facepalm himself.
Green Goblin manages to make Batman do this. And Green Goblin wasn't even drugged at the time!
Green Lantern does this while Deadpool was singing to Ryan Reynolds.
In Keepers of the Elements, there are quite a few moments that cause these for various characters, from bad guys to the protagonists.
In A Fanfiction Carol, Petraverd (the first ghost, in the form of a unicorn) face-hoofs whenever Smooge, after showing some sign of progress, acts like the ditz-of-a-fangirl she still is.
In Shark Tale, Don Lino does this and says, "Oy vey." in annoyance at his henchman Luca putting the record on the wrong song, which was "Baby Got Back (I Like Big Butts)" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Frankie also does this.
In Open Season, Beth groans and facepalms herself while in Gordy's police station to confront Shaw.
In Open Season 3, Gisela and Giselita do this sometimes (and at the end, they do a two-handed facepalm together as the ladies are starting to dance with Ian, who is their coach). Stanley also does this after Roger says, "It's destiny!" when the pets come to save Boog from the Maslova Family Circus.
In Tarzan II, Kago does this gesture after his brother Uto says that if their bones were hallow and they were able to fly, they'd be the "biggest birds in town".
Lord Victor Quartermaine: How on earth would those tiny-minded buffoons ever catch such a big rabbit? Lady Tottington: Mr. Wallace? Wallace: Um... with a big trap! Gromit:(facepalm)
Even funnier when everyone in attendace (minus Gromit) says stuff along the lines of, "THAT'S BRILLIANT!"
There's also Victor doing this after PC Macintosh says "the beast [were-rabbit] isn't actually dead yet?!" with a megaphone. It's even funnier while said character is doing the gesture, the said officer said "oops" with a megaphone.
Towards the end of Disney's adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, during Alice's trial, unbirthdays are brought up, which causes a whole new party, and of course the Mad Hatter and the March Hare have to sing "A Very Merry Unbirthday to You" for the Queen of Hearts.
Alice: Oh no, not this again! (facepalm)
Maleficent in Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty does this when she realizes her minions have been looking for a baby... for 15 years.
In Lilo & Stitch, after Stitch escapes from his confinement and goes to hyperdrive, Captain Gantu does this while saying, "Get me Galactic Control..."
John:(after the engine has failed) Maybe we should call a road service. Paul: Can't, no road! Ringo: And we're not sub... scribers. John, Paul and George: "Sub scribers"... ooh. (Paul facepalms)
Mama Odie covers her face with her other hand when Tiana misses the entire point of the Aesop song "Dig A Little Deeper".
Dr. Faciller pinches his nose after his gang of evil shadows took a severe beating from a firefly.
Disney apparently likes this trope; it happens thrice in Treasure Planet.
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack facepalms himself after Lock, Shock and Barrel bring back the Easter Bunny instead of Santa (who Jack calls "Sandy Claws") and start fighting over it.
In Toy Story 3, a 17-year-old Andy does one of these when he believes his slightly aged mother has thrown out his toys.
Done by The Carpet, of all characters, in Aladdin. Immediately followed by Aladdin himself, as he's trying to explain to Jasmine why he lied to her about the first time they met.
In Bolt, one of the mooks gets zapped when trying to facepalm with electric glove.
The Great Mouse Detective. Basil has a particularly pained one when Dawson gets drunk and makes a fool of himself onstage when they're supposed to be undercover.
In Finding Nemo, Crush does this when Marlin says he needs to get to the East Australian Current. "You're ridin' it, dude!"
Films — Live-Action
In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, a flashback detailing the backstory of the titular golden army has a group of pseudo-stop motion wooden puppets acting it out. Whenever the king of the human army is described as being upset, he declines into a facepalm.
In The History Boys, Timms performs an admirable Head-Desk in exasperation with his schoolwork.
in the RoboCop series, the President of OCP does this at least once in every movie. He does it after ED-209 malfunctions, and again in RoboCop 2 after viewing the suicidal RoboCop prototypes.
Natural Born Killers: Scagnetti does this over his own stupidity when Mickey says, "I was out of shells." Scagnetti combines the Face Palm with [[The Simpsons "D'oh!"]] as much as that fork in his throat will allow.
features back-to-back scenes with facepalms, first from Jimmy Stewart's wrongly-accused fugitive, then from the police chief leading the manhunt for him; both are reacting to disastrous "help" they are getting from other characters.
In Groundhog Day, Phil does a head-pillow variant when he tells a shrink his problem and the shrink answers, "Can you come back tomorrow?"
In Back to the Future, Doc Brown does this right after Lorraine asks Marty to the dance, suddenly realizing that Lorraine (Marty's mother) has developed romantic feelings for Marty.
In Apollo 13, Flight Director Gene Kranz reacts with a subtle one and some exasperated snarking on learning that the only available spare carbon-dioxide scrubbers on the stricken spacecraft (from the dead Command Module) are square, and the receptacle for the only working scrubber system (in the Lunar Module) is round.
Gene Kranz:(facepalm) Tell me this isn't a government operation... gentlemen, I suggest you find a way to fit a square peg into a round hole. Rapidly.
Nathan Lane's character Max Bialystock in The Producers has a record number of these throughout the movie.
Literature
The Duumvirate and a few other Illuminati do this in response to abject stupidity.
At the end of Jules Verne's Around the Moon, the leader of the rescue team realizes that the crashed spaceship they are looking for can actually float, so they searched it in vain for many days with bathyspheres on the ocean floor. He then performs a facepalm, forgetting about his Hook Hand, and knocks himself out.
Near the end of Men at Arms, Sam Vimes does this when he is told that Captain Carrot has come to the tradesman's entrance of his house.
In the Honor Harrington novel The Honor of the Queen, Sir Langtry does this when Mr. Houseman reveals his idiocy and upgrades to a double when It Got Worse.
Pee-wee's Playhouse. In the episode "Stolen Apples," after Mrs. Steve tells Pee-wee that Randy has been stealin her crab apples again, Pee-wee facepalms himself.
Star Trek: The Next Generation. Captain Picard often does this, as the Trope Image from "Deja Q" shows, but sometimes he is joined by Cmdr. Will Riker for a "double face palm" in the face of extreme stupidity; hence, the genesis of the Double Facepalm◊, when one simply doesn't suffice. The image of Picard has become the patron saint of facepalming. The alternative "Single Head Double Face Palm", as described above, was featured in "The Offspring".
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Sisko is often fond of the pinching the bridge of ones nose variation of this trope Kai Winn is most often the cause. But he lets out a few outright facepalms here and there.
In Star Trek: Voyager episode "Death Wish", Q performs an elusively rare variation on the double facepalm. That is, two faces, one right palm per face◊ (this is not a recommended procedure for mere mortals). Oh, whatever was the gesture for? Well, Vulcan logic is no fun, basically.
Kamen Rider Kabuto. In the Hyper Battle Video, Arata Kagami attempts to perform a Rider Kick using Kabuto's style. Tendou Souji couldn't bear to watch the Epic Fail that ensues.
Giles, mentor for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, often takes off his glasses and squeezes the bridge of his nose when confronted with the thought patterns of teenagers. He also tends to clean his glasses with a handkerchief a lot.
Buffy: Is that why you're always cleaning your glasses? So you don't have to see what we're doing? Giles: Tell no one.
The comedian Jasper Carrott used to do the "forehead slap" a lot.
Sergeant Wilson of Dad's Army would sometimes pull his uniform cap down over his eyes to avoid seeing whatever hilarity was ensuing that week, as a way of introducing a little variety to the facepalm.
A favourite of Jon Stewart in The Daily Show for when politics gets reallydumb.◊
One of Jack Benny's signature bits was to look at the camera with a hand to his cheek and a pained expression on his face.
A scene from Too Close for Comfort episode "The Remaking of Monroe" has a co-worker say he is surprised that Henry is 52 years old (he thought he was two years older). Henry then asks Monroe (who just arrived at Henry and Muriel's apartment a couple of minutes before to ask for money to attend an assertiveness training seminar) how old he looked. Muriel (who is standing behind Monroe) mimes to him a response by holding up four fingers on her left hand and five on her right. You would think the response he would go with based on Muriel's hand signals would be "45", but instead Monroe goes with the response, "nine". What Muriel does is actually more of a head palm, but still...
Al Bundy sometimes did this on Married... with Children when life was acting particularly cruel to him. He also did the head-desk variation in one episode when he bashed his head against the table in frustration while trying to pay some bills.
In Farscape, the mercenary Bekhesh performs a faceplatepalm when Stark explains that the plan to attack the Shadow Depository relies on a silent count- in the middle of a potential shootout with the guards.
President Bartlet from The West Wing does the head desk variation on the frickin' Resolute desk while stuck listening an Old Soldier Old Diplomat's "fascinating" stories about various Cold War-era foreign relations escapades.
In The Big Bang Theory, Leonard probably does the longest facepalm ever televised when the science panel they are supposed to be speaking on deteriorates into complete and utter chaos as Howard and Bernadette start comparing Howard's... umm... weaponry to one of her ex's. Once he realizes that nothing will save the situation, he joins the "fun".
Spencer balls his fist onto his face when the European swimsuit models dance goofily.
Carly slaps her forehead with her palm upon learning Sam's mom has no idea what iCarly is.
USA has a commercial for both Burn Notice and White Collar that has Peter Burke noticing Fiona's gun that she has taken out of her purse at lunch to answer her cell phone. When she tries to cover the gun with her purse, a grenade rolls out of the purse. Michael's FacePalm is almost as epic as the trope image.
Bert Convy did this in embarrassment whenever he blurts out the clue word or solving the password in Super Password.
In Glee, Kurt has never gone as far as an overt facepalm, but in moments of intense exasperation will press two fingers hard against his temple. It's the understatedness of the gesture that makes it so effective.
This was played with in Criminal Minds, where the team leader does a face palm after the team geek makes a particularly dorky statement. However, it turns out that he's experiencing a headache due to an injury sustained in the previous episode (where he was blown up by a car bomb).
Evelyn does this in Two and a Half Men at Charlie's funeral when Rose describes how he wasn't in pain at his death (his body merely exploded like a meat sack when that train hit him).
On Boy Meets World, Shawn and Minkus both facepalm in unison when Mr. Feeny assigns them as partners.
The father on Family Ties is reduced to a face whipe version of this and borderline angrish when he came home early to find a wild college party going on the house.
"There was... a kangaroo... in my house..."
On Numb3rs, Charlie did this once when Larry said that perhaps the suspect could be in two places at the same time. (It was a quantum idea.)
There's a sketch from It's Marty in which a terrible elderly couple utterly demolish a travel agent.
Travel Agent: Would you like to travel by plane, train, or coach?
Couple: No.
Travel Agent: ...No, what?
Couple: No, thank you.
Travel Agent: That's bett—(facepalm)
In The Mentalist, Teresa Lisbon, gobsmacked by the antics of her consultant Patrick Jane, teeters on the edge of executing one for seasons 1 and 2, before she finds out in Season 3 that Jane broke into a suspect's house for the information they used to arrest him - in the middle of the suspect's trial - resulting in a beautiful example of the trope.◊
New Media
The Mario Fan Games Galaxy forums contains a "facepalm" smiley, probably better known by its filename of "ugh.gif". It was used and abused so much that it was even temporarily filtered to "Don't worry, I can relate".
This was taken from Something Awful. Facepunch Studios also inherited the smiley for a while, then took it out when it was abused in the In The News forum.
Some editors in This Wiki tend to use this at times as a reaction... and Pothole it to this very page.
Print Media
Maclean's magazine columnist Scott Feschuk's author thumbnail has him doing this. Considering the fact that his column focuses on satirizing some of the most facepalm-inducing topics of the month, this is quite appropriate (it's also hilarious to imagine him doing it while typing out his article).
Puppet Shows
Sam the Eagle on The Muppet Show is a frequent practitioner of the facewingtip, but he will often simply utter his signature phrase, "You are all weirdos."
Parker on Mr. Meaty does this gesture in the episode "Hamish" in annoyance at Josh talking to Goth Girl.
The opera Impresario, who's very sensitive about his operas, does this when an act goes wrong or when it may go wrong. It is probable, though, that his "face palm" is more of a corny, theatrical and/or dramatical gesture of distress, (you know, that old cover-your-face-with-your-arm/hand-whilds-wistfully-going-"Oh" thingy,) rather than the common, slightly more humorous usage of the gesture. This would make sense seeing as he is, well, the impresario of an opera.
A straight example of this occurs when Gau leads Sabin and Cyan to a cave, to show them a "shiny shiny". Once they arrive... he forgets where it is, cuing a facepalm.
Fire Emblem: Kent, whenever Sain starts making his moves on a girl. See on the right hand side here◊.
In Dead Space, the main character does a facepalm after he learns that his girlfriend, who he thought was alive, was Dead All Along. A sad facepalm indeed.
In the Professor Layton series, both Layton and Luke do this if they get a puzzle wrong. Layton pulls the brim of his tophat over his eyes, while Luke does the classic forehead slap.
In Utawarerumono This is Eruruw's default expression for when Hakuoro does something stupid — but not stupid enough to get seriously angry over (which he does often).
World of Warcraft added a /facepalm emote in patch 3.0.2, although it only produces a predefined text message and not animated. It's also one of the few emotes the game's statistics page will track on your character; they expect you to use it that much.
Anarchy Online as well added a similar command, and animated it.
Guild Wars also has a facepalm emote, though the command for it is /doh.
Tales Of Monkey Island gives the second-most-intelligent character in its opening sequence (namely: a monkey) one of these right before everything goes to hell.
In the Star Trek MMORPG, there's a macro that lets your character do this à la Picard.
It was only logical that the facepalm became an emote in Star Trek Online.
You met the fanboy from the first game, Conrad Verner, trying to terrorize an asari bartender.
Conrad: ... Yeah, my wife was really supportive of this whole thing. She even paid for my shuttle ticket offworld! Bartender:(facepalm)
Also seen on the Migrant Fleet when, against Tali's earnest request not to ask Admiral Zaal'Koris vas Qwib Qwib about his name, you ask Admiral Zaal'Koris vas Qwib Qwib about his name.
Shepard: You have a ship named Qwib Qwib? Tali:(facepalm) Oh, here we go...
In Sonic Colors, Sonic does a facepalm in the cut scene where Tails is attempting to figure out what the Wisps are saying. ("He says his name is Talks-a-lot and he's from a far off soda...")
Yacker (the Wisp Tails was trying to translate for) also facepalms. At the exact same time as Sonic does.
If you're watching him, Raz pulls this off during the boss fight in Black Velvetopia. It's not the main focus, but not easy to miss, either — just pay attention to him while Edgar reverts to El Odio.
While we're on the topic, Sasha gets the chance at the end of the game, when Ford's psitanium wears off and Chef Cruller returns.
If you play the game In the 1st Degree right, Tobin will do this shortly after having a meltdown in the courtroom. This is probably due to him realizing that he just effectively hanged himself.
In Dot Hack GU, Haseo does this so often it's one of his standard animations.
In the "record book" sbemail, when Coach Z announces his record attempt, Strong Bad finds it so monumentally stupid that he skips facepalming entirely and repeatedly smacks himself upside the head.
Web Comics
Annyseed Count Tarroviene on page 66. Also, Winston seems to be heading this way on page 119.
Books Don't Work Here: Two girls on their way to the mall, why is this example here? Link“He's (the author) putting us on a bus the week before he's moving and getting a new job. It's gonna be a long bus ride.” That would do it.
Goblins, so very... very much, particularly early on. And just as much in the sub-comic Tempts Fate.
This X-Men parody from Trapped in a Comic has Pr. Xavier doing a facepalm.
MegaTokyo: Kobayashi-kun did this after he realized he'd just sent Yuki away alone... when she'd been suggesting she could bring him along if he held on to her "really, really tight." Way to go, kid who's had a crush on Yuki for years....
Susan's facepalm reflex was developed with the help of her mom, and years of her acquaintance with Tedd only refined it. And now "Little Nase" working as semi-autonomous body extension allows her to stare in disbelief and do fairy-facepalm at the same time!
Sarine's relationship with Jon in Errant Story is largely a single, incredibly extended, highly expressive facepalm, but she does get to turn the tables and induce a classic one of her own in Jon's sister Sara.
Sahira:Facepalm! I think Mecha Maid is a lesbian who wants to have sexual intercourse with you.
Most everybody in Least I Could Do has done the "pinching the bridge of the nose" variant at one time or another. Usually it's because of something Rayne just said or did.
The Gord, from the website Acts of Gord, apparently does this a lot. About every chapter of the "Books" has a small image of Gord facepalming while commenting on the worst idiocy on the page.
Knight & Dragon sketch by Ursula Vernon sort of... why, just look at it...
Variation of headdesk with Todd in the Shadows, after realizing what "Paparazzi" is about. While he has no desk available at the time, he does have a keyboard. And a head.
In the latest episode of Wrestle! Wrestle! for TNA Impact!, Spoony has apparently gotten to the point where even saying "Dixie" (as in TNA owner Dixie Carter) causes a reflexive facepalm.
Desu Des Brigade member CJ Hitchcock did this rapeatedly during his Vampire Wars review when he found out that Kuki's code name would be Bat instead of Van Helsing.
What The Fuck Is Wrong With You?: Nash often does this on his show in response to the rampant stupidity. Whenever he does this in his Doctor Who reviews, it usually comes with a sound effect as well.
Katara: Why is your forehead all red? Chong: Don't anyone react to what I'm about to tell you. I think that kid... is the ''Avatar''. Sokka:(forehead smack)
In fact, Sokka does this a lot, leading many to speculate that doing it so many times resulted in the hardening of his forehead, which was why Ty Lee hurt her hand trying to strike it in "The Chase".
Zuko does it when Iroh flirts with an unattractive woman in "The Drill".
Also, Zuko's nose pinch in "The Western Air Temple", when he remembered how much of a dork he was when he began his search for the Avatar.
Suki does it too in "The Boiling Rock" when Sokka tries (and fails) to cover-up the fact that they're hatching an escape plan. "The only thing we're hatching is... an egg?"
The stallholder in Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves.
The Simpsons: Homer Simpson sometimes combines this with his Catch Phrase "D'oh!", though it's when he does something stupid.
Stan from South Park is a big fan of the "pinching the bridge of one's nose" type. It makes sense, as, thanks to Flanderization, he has a Liz Lemon Job. Apparently this is because series co-creator Trey Parker (on whom Stan is based) does this a lot in Real Life.
Undergrads features a collective facepalm at a mixer in the first episode.
Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force will find himself many times engaging in this act, especially as a result of the actions of Master Shake.
Helga from Hey Arnold does this in response to the antics of her alcoholic mother.
Numbuh Five and Numbuh One of Codename: Kids Next Door are fond of doing this. Especially Numbuh One — fitting, as he's essentially a kid version of Picard.
Sadlygrove often inspires this to his friends — usually along with calling him a "Iop brain". Eva goes for the two-handed facepalm◊ in episode 19 when Grovy gets himself into a duel with Prince Armand.
Jay the Iop also spurs Kriss Krass to facepalm during the Bontarian Gobbowl match.
Rushu facepalms when he thinks Anathar has just crushed his precious Eliatrope prisoner.
In an episode of Batman Beyond, Batman (Terry McGinnis, remember) performs the motion after his geeky schoolmate Howard tells his obsessive-compulsive robot girlfriend they could be just friends.
Howard: Wrong thing to say? Batman: Is it ever the right thing to say?
An episode of Batman The Animated Series has Veronica Vreeland attending the opera with Penguin. Imagine her reaction when the Penguin starts singing along.
Toa Tahu does this in BIONICLE: Mask of Light during a Kohlii match after Jaller dives right out of the way rather than blocking the oncoming Kohlii ball. Amusingly, shortly after, Jaller hits himself in the head with his Kohlii stick. It's an incredibly dramatic double-facepalm.
Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants does this occasionally, and will add to it by sliding his tentacle slowly off his face, causing his face to sag and then spring back into shape.
Mac Mange, the Metallikat of SWAT Kats, has a metal face palm in "A Bright and Shiny Future" when his wife (with whom he co-ruled the city in a Bad Future) kept insisting that their robot servants were hers. Complete with metal clang.
Kiva's reaction in Megas XLR to a fair number of events, such as Coop and Jamie letting out all the imprisoned aliens in "Breakout".
Twlight Sparkle's standard response to several of the more bizarre events in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is to Facehoof. The other Ponies get in on it too, with Rainbow Dash doing a Double Facehoof at times.
Stanley does this a few times in The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan comics. Surprisingly, his easily-exasperated partner Henry only does this once (in episode 9 of the cartoon).
Alice Johnson: This will make for an interesting story. Especially the part where Dr. Venkman forgets the ghost traps. Peter Venkman: My mother reads Celebrity! (cue facepalm)
In Futurama's "Why Must I be a Crustacean in Love", Bender does this to Amy after she releases a crazed Zoidberg... for the 8th time.
Oddly sort of subverted as facepalms usually occur when you realize you yourself have done something ridiculously inane or have been missing the obvious. Especially prevalent in finally solving a problem after realizing you made an exceptionally simple error, like, say, forgetting to carry the one.
It's even worse if you're a roleplayer as every group has a player that delights in causing these.
Some editors in This Wiki tend to use this at times as a reaction...and pothole it to this very page.
In the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster, Kirk Hammett is seen to facepalm as Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield engage in a less-than-adult bitchfight.
◊: "When the Fail is so strong, one Face Palm is not enough." The alternative Double Face Palm is grasping one's head with both palms, as Picard did
