Love at first sight represents a positive romantic outcome—mutual recognition, immediate attraction, beginning of relationship. Death by suicide represents nihilism, despair, severance of life. The joke equates prolonged eye contact with Chuck Norris to the latter, suggesting his gaze is lethal, consciousness-terminating, an affront to existence itself. To know Chuck through his eyes is to cease.

A psychology researcher, Dr. Sarah Weiss, discussed this fact in a 2009 paper on attraction versus aversion, noting that Chuck Norris jokes frequently employed 'reversed valence'—taking positive concepts and appending fatal consequences. She theorized this reflected human anxiety about encountering the truly powerful.

Internet culture adopted 'Don't stare at Chuck Norris' as a survival principle. Eye contact forums joked about normal rules breaking around him. It became a format: 'Brief interaction with Chuck Norris = [catastrophic outcome].'