Many memes hijack the portraits or videos of real people. How do these people end up feeling about the unexpected infamy? Well, let’s find out.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson admitted that he was initially creeped out by the badass meme. But he eventually came around, deciding it was flattering rather than mocking. He also reiterates the origin of the much copy-and-pasted gesture, which sprang from a video he did about Isaac Newton, who was, in fairness, a badass. As told to JT from The Verge.
Overly Attached Girlfriend star Laina actually took to her fame quite well and started her own YouTube channel. “Part of me wondered if I was supposed to just perform this character forever,” she said. “Even now, I wonder if I should have created two separate accounts for my own videos vs. Overly-Attached Girlfriend”, Liana told Vanessa Brown, news.com.au. Currently, her YouTube account has a whopping 1,288,328 subscribers, and Laina said a lot of people still see her as the girl with the creepy face.
Keanu Reeves is well aware of his Sad Keanu meme and his official response: “I mean, do I wish I didn’t get my picture taken while I was eating a sandwich on the streets of New York? Yeah.” As told to BBC.
In a Reddit AMA, College Freshman meme star Griffin Kiritsy admitted that many of the memes mimicked his first year of college, saying “the laundry jokes, the bragging about parties I went to, and all of the dying ones happened to me.” He also reports that being a meme hasn’t had any real negative effects on his life: “I plan on being the College Freshman until … I die.”
When someone explained to her that her image was used to make jokes about uptight, hypocritical, and sometimes racist suburban mothers, Philips says her initial reaction was “horror and fury and hurt.” After she was told that the joke wasn’t about her, but about overly protective moms who don’t practice what they preach, Phillips said she felt a bit better about the whole thing. “I never want anyone who sees it to think that I, the real mom/person … believes any of that stuff, especially the derogatory, inflammatory, prejudiced things in there.” As told to the Daily Dot
In an interview with American breakfast television show Good Morning America, Zeddie Little responded to questions about his meme appeal, “I really don’t know, but I kinda feel honoured to be part of a joke that’s in good spirit because sometimes the Internet can be a little vicious or jokes can get bent the wrong way. But these are all kind, and for the most part, positive. It’s funny that everybody has kinda taken a like to it. It’s, I guess, the most flattering way to get spread across the Internet.”
This article was first published in March 2017 issue of Digit magazine. To read Digit's articles first, subscribe here or download the Digit e-magazine app for Android and iOS. You could also buy Digit's previous issues here.