Meet The People Who Broke The Internet Because of Their Meme

And read the story behind it.

In the 1960s, Andy Warhol said that “one day, everyone will be entitled to 15 minutes of fame”.

Decades later, at the peak of the internet, social networks, algorithmic surveillance, and the search for likes, that future has become dystopian, and many yearn for their 15 minutes of privacy.

One of those postmodern phenomena that not even Warhol could have imagined was memes, which turn the faces of ordinary people into viral jokes.

However, it’s easy to forget that behind every image of a “funny” face with words written on top is a person who didn’t ask to be a meme.

Hide the Pain Harold — András Arató

In November of that year, András Arató wrote a column in The Guardian newspaper, narrating his experience of becoming a meme against his will.

You may have never heard the name of this Hungarian with 40 years of professional engineering experience. But, for the entire internet, he is just the man who smiles, hiding a supposed inner pain. His meme is used for all those unpleasant situations where we keep smiling even though we suffer inside.

Although Arató provided his image for a series of photographs that would be part of an image bank, he never imagined that the collective conscience of the web would choose his face to become a meme.

After a period of concern over the situation, in which pages and profiles on the internet improperly appropriated his image and pretended to be the true human being behind the character, the engineer took over the meme.

He created a personal page (Facebook.com/painharold), participated in commercials on television, traveled, gave lectures worldwide, and became the subject of music.

First World Problems — Silvia Bottini

The case of actress Silvia Bottini is another example of a stock photo that did not turn out as expected.

Although she has a career, her fake tears have become her best-known work. Her boyfriend, a professional stock photographer, took the photo during a trip to China in 2008.

He asked her to try a sad face and cry, and it was the cue to become a meme that symbolizes banal problems and people who have everything but gets bored with trifles.

It took three years for the meme to be born in the hands of an unknown author. The use of the meme is not always respectful to her or even to women, and that bothers Bottini. Although she never made a cent from the meme, she is now working on a film that will tell her experience from a humorous point of view.

Blinking Guy — Drew Scanlon

Drew Scanlon has lived on the fringes of his meme for years. The animated GIF of him blinking has been used to demonstrate perplexity, confusion, and the reaction of someone who doesn’t believe what he is seeing.

He had no part in creating the meme, didn’t understand its popularity, and didn’t use the GIF. Then, during his visit to the Giant Bomb website in 2013, a co-worker made a lousy joke amid streaming games, Scanlon reacted with the expression, and a meme was born there.

However, in September that year, Scanlon broke the silence and used the meme for the first time on Twitter. If undue fame came, why not use it for a good cause? After two friends were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the face behind the meme embarked on a journey to raise funds for an entity that fights the disease.

This campaign involved creating a URL on top of the meme, a cycling marathon, and a call to all people who had fun with the image someday.

Disaster Girl — Zoe Roth

It is one of the oldest memes on the internet, having appeared in 2014 and never be entirely forgotten: the seemingly devilish face of a girl smiling in front of a fire. Zoe Roth was four years old, and her dad had just bought a new camera and wanted to try it out.

He took his daughter for a walk around the neighborhood and found firefighters training in an abandoned house. Not knowing what was going on, undecided between being worried about the fire and smiling at her father, little Zoe starred in a reaction that set the internet on fire.

The photo was published on a contest website and printed four years later when its popularity finally faded. However, Zoe’s life was not affected by the repercussions, and few people close to her recognized her at school.

An advertising company eventually bought the rights to use the image, and the earnings helped pay for her studies.