Internet memes spread like wildfire.
These popular images have become the water cooler talk of today's world, with billions
of people laughing together at the many forms of "Distracted Boyfriend", or wondering what
"Grumpy Cat" is so mad about.
But behind every popular meme is a mysterious true story.
Doge
Dogs are man's best friend.
So, it was no surprise when the internet lit up with images of "Doge," an adorable Shiba
Inu.
Doge fever reached such heights that the image spun off into a satirical cryptocurrency called
Dogecoin, which occasionally reaches market values of hundreds of millions.
However, few people know that before she was a meme, this dog was a rescue, named Kabosu.
[Speaking Japanese] [BORK!]
Kabosu was born in a puppy mill, according to The Verge.
When the mill closed, she and 19 other puppies were abandoned in a dog shelter, and almost
all of these dogs were euthanized.
Kabosu escaped certain demise when she was adopted in 2008 by a loving Japanese school
teacher, who posted the "Doge" photo on her blog in early 2010.
And the rest is history.
Overly Attached Girlfriend
Laina Morris was only 20 years old when an
image from her YouTube video gained notoriety as the "Overly Attached Girlfriend," leading
to an explosion of attention — some good, some bad, and some just plain creepy.
According to the Independent, Morris's original video was a parody of the Justin Bieber song
"Boyfriend," told from the perspective of a "stalker girlfriend."
The day after she posted it, a screenshot landed on Reddit, and the meme was born.
"It blew up overnight really…
Justin Bieber's manager sent a Tweet out with a link to the video."
Within hours, random creepers went through her YouTube, and others seized on her personal
Facebook page.
But Morris funneled all the attention onto her YouTube channel and kept making videos.
Eventually, she got enough subscribers to become a full-time YouTuber.
She says of her meme-fame, "It's like the greatest thing to ever happen
to me... not a second have I ever wished that 'overly attached girlfriend' didn't happen."
Disaster Girl
From The Omen to The Ring, Hollywood has menaced us for decades with images of sinister children.
So the internet was primed for Disaster Girl, whose face has appeared before countless scenes
of destruction.
According to Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in 2004 Zoe Roth and her brother, Tristan,
were watching TV one afternoon when their mom noticed a huge fire up the road.
Zoe's dad, Dave, scooped up his camera, and the family went to get pictures.
Dave uploaded the photo online, and the image took off, becoming the Disaster Girl meme
we know today.
Now that she's a teen, Zoe finds the whole thing pretty fun, saying,
"I'd love for the meme to help me get into or pay for college somehow."
Grumpy Cat
If there's one internet pet as fanatically adored as Doge, it's Grumpy Cat.
"Who doesn't know Grumpy Cat?"
According to the Telegraph, the real Grumpy Cat has the even more awesome name of "Tardar
Sauce," and the tidal wave of internet popularity has completely changed the life of her owner,
Tabatha Bundesen.
Back when the original photo was taken, Bundesen was struggling to make ends meet as a waitress.
But that all changed when Bundesen's brother Brian posted the famous photo online.
"She looked cute in my lap, but in the picture she looked, like, way grumpy, so I posted
it on Reddit because we thought it was so grumpy that we had to share it."
Since those early days, Bundesen has managed to make millions of dollars from Grumpy Cat
merch, books, a brand of iced coffee, a film deal, and even a gig as the Friskies spokes-cat,
according to Business Wire.
Mental Floss explains that despite Tardar Sauce's sour expression, she's actually a
happy, playful, frisky cat.
Success Kid
Nothing says victory like the image of Success Kid — who was then 11-month-old Sammy Griner
of Florida.
But what's really amazing is what happened after Success Kid became, well, a success.
By 2015, according to ABC News, Sammy was well into elementary school and his dad, Justin
Griner, had been experiencing six years of kidney failure.
The popularity of the Success Kid meme allowed them to receive a welcome surge of attention
for their GoFundMe campaign, where fans of the meme donated over $100,000 to fund both
a kidney replacement operation and hospital care for Sammy's dad.
"It's so humbling, and just reassures our faith in humanity that people wanna help people."
The result?
Success.
Distracted Boyfriend
The results are in: "Distracted Boyfriend" was the biggest meme of 2017 — and it's
all thanks to the meme's perfect combo of simplicity and versatility.
So where did it come from?
Funny enough, it used to be an everyday stock image on Shutterstock, part of a larger series
taken by Barcelona-based photographer Antonio Guillem.
And according to New York Magazine, Guillem had no idea until recently that the Distracted
Boyfriend meme existed, or even what a meme was, until one of the models in the photo
showed it to him.
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