Picture of the Day: The Meeting of the Memes
Over the weekend more than 800 people gathered at ROFLCon III, a conference at MIT, to talk about the phenomenon of Internet fame — why it happens, how it happens, and, from the meme celebrities themselves, what it’s like to experience it. Above, two of ROFLCON’s biggest stars, Antoine Dodson, made famous by a colorful rant on a North Alabama news station, and Chuck Testa, whose advertisement for his taxidermy practice went viral last fall.
‘Ridiculously Photogenic Guy’ Is Your Viral Superstar of the Week
Zeddie Little’s photo has been viewed over 1.3 million times on Flickr and has inspired a meme based around his ridiculously photogenic smile amid the sweaty runners during a 10k Run in South Carolina. Little’s image and the memes in which he smiles away the pains of this world began on Reddit, according to ABC News. “Little looked as if he had stepped straight out of a magazine,”writes ABC’s Alyssa Newcomb. “The photo was posted on the Internet sharing board Reddit and went viral, inspiring a caption meme, where people pasted text on the photo of Little.”
Here’s that Reddit post Newcomb references, with close to 41,000 up-votes, and it appears Little already has Mashable’s seal of approval too. […]
According to the Charleston City Paper, the 25-year-old Little now lives in New York City. And although it seems no one’s caught up to Mr. Ridiculously Photogenic himself, the City Paper’s Paul Bowers did talk to his dad. ”He called me this morning and said, ‘Dad, you’re not gonna believe this,’” Jack Little said in an interview with the paper. “And I said, ‘What?’ and he said, ‘I’m famous on the internet.’”
