By setting up an April Fools’ Day prank that he closed his iconic teeth gap, Michael Strahan drew attention to the westernized beauty standard of straight white teeth.

“I did it. #GoodbyeGap,” Strahan tweeted on March 30.

The television personality and former professional athlete included a video of the dental work he underwent. The video has more than four million views to date.

Two days later, Strahan revealed the prank, but not before many of his followers shared their opinions on his transformation.

Others said Strahan’s gap made them feel confident with their own.

“Strahan was one of my idols as a kid because of his gap. I hated mine as an adolescent, due to bullying and rejection but #92 had one so I was good,” said @MansaMars.

A 2015 study from the University of Toronto showed that the acquisition of straight, white teeth in North American culture reinforces social class differences, promotes beauty ideals and sustains a stigma attached to poor oral health.

Alex Parkhouse, assistant professor of sociology at Quinnipiac University, said Strahan’s prank is a perpetuation of these cultural perceptions.

“If people are going on let’s say a first date, or you’re out in public and you’re talking to a random stranger, that smile says something about who you are to the other person, so in that regard, the smile becomes a sort of a cultural icon and something to be desired,” Parkhouse said.

Parkhouse added that teeth also reflect access to resources, including orthodontic work.

“We might feel pressure or an obligation to have braces at a certain age or maybe, if we look at cohorts of people, many of your friends in general have all had sort of orthodontic work, and so, if you yourself don’t, maybe you feel as though you’re the outlier in the group,” Parkhouse said.

Strahan said he was shocked at how many people were disappointed with the prospect that he got rid of his “signature” gap.

“I was surprised, to be honest with you, at how many people were like, ‘No! Don’t get rid of the gap; it’s your signature!’” Strahan said in a video posted to Instagram. “And I’ve always kind of looked at it that way, but I didn’t know so many people cared.”

The scale to which Strahan’s stunt has been talked about makes sense to Parkhouse.

“What it has done is it’s highlighted the significance of what we culturally place on the smile itself, to the extent that we have multiple media outlets making this a national news story,” Parkhouse said. “In the era of a global pandemic, we’re talking about somebody’s smile. That, to me, is mind blowing, but it’s not surprising sociologically because that’s what we value.”

Parkhouse said that reasons for wanting to change one’s physical appearance comes down to the individual, but that the smile has a larger implication because of the way it’s viewed in society.

“The cultural goal (is) to have a smile that is worth a million words,” Parkhouse said.