You know their faces – hell, you’ve probably even shared their photos all over your own social media. They’re not your friends, but they’re also not strangers. They exist somewhere in between your hilarious imagination and the real world that produced them. **They’re Meme People, and it’s about time you got to know who they really are.**
All Alex was trying to do was his job, but after a customer snapped a picture during checkout, he became a popular meme. The image went viral after being posted on Twitter, due to the fact that many people thought it amusing that such a handsome young buck could work at Target. Behold, the power of teenage girl fandom.
His real name is Kyle, and we appreciate his sense of humor. The photo was uploaded by a friend, who thought Kyle’s 7th grade picture was too hilarious to keep private. Now, Kyle makes YouTube videos and has an incredible amount of Internet fans.
Hipster Barista is Dustin Mattson from Atlanta. His meme got its start on Reddit, where it was quickly shared by thousands of people. In true hipster fashion, Mattson expressed distaste for the meme, saying that it was disrespectful to specialty baristas everywhere. Hipsters always take the fun out of everything.
This meme is probably the closes to reality. The guy is a college student named Griffin Kiritsy, and he explained how the whole thing got started on his blog: “The story behind the picture is the worst part though. I did this interview over the phone and I thought that was the end of it, but a few weeks later the guy who set me up with the interview called and said a photographer was coming to take my picture. “No big deal” I told this guy, “I can pose for a few snapshots.” Little did I know that the f*cking Picasso of photos was coming to frame me for this shot, and I ended up on Thompson Hall lawn in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. For those of you who aren’t UNH-ers, it’s like walking in the middle of Main Street during rush hour. And I was there while he took 137,000 photos. Talk about committing social suicide as a first semester freshman. F*ck me.”
The image above is actually a screenshot of Laina Walker singing a Justin Beiber song on her YouTube page, where she uploads dozens of videos of herself doing weirdly awesome things. In fact, Walker is an incredibly popular YouTuber with millions of subscribers.
A romance novelist and mom, Carly Phillips didn’t plan on Internet star. In fact, she didn’t even know about the memes until someone alerted her to them on Facebook. At first, Phillips was hurt, but then realized that the joke wasn’t on her. Still she has her reservations: “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.” Don’t worry, Mrs. Phillips. We know you’re cool.
This is one of the most infamous memes in Internet history, and rightfully so – that baby really does mean business. The original photo was uploaded by Success Kid’s mom, who thought the image of her son Sammy was hilarious. Now, Sammy is five years old, and we love his smile just as much as we love his Success Face.
This meme was actually a stock photo pulled from Shutterstock and put onto 4Chan. This meme doesn’t lie: Successful Black Man is actually quite successful. According to one Redditor, he lives in Texas with his lady, got a degree in electrical engineering, and now works for GE.
First World Problems Girl is actually a strikingly beautiful commercial model and actress named Silvia Bottini. She has had a successful career, but her unnecessary weeping is what has gotten her the most attention.
Scumbag Steve is actually named Blake Boston, and he’s probably not actually a scumbag. However, this photo was taken by Boston’s mom when he was 16 years old, so there’s no telling how scumbaggy he might have been as a teen. We’re thinking he was just fashion-forward.
It’s hard to control your face when you’re dancing to a sick beat, an no one knows this better than Clarence in Australia. The photo has made the Internet rounds, and Clarence is clearly still into partying.
The original photo is below, and shows baby Mason hanging out with his dad, Jarod Knoten, at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, North Carolina. Clearly, Mason was pretty suspect of the whole science thing.
This handsome hunk is actually 25-year-old Zeddie LIttle. The photo was snapped as he was running a 10K race in South Carolina. As you can see, the meme doesn’t lie – He’s actually that good-looking. Here, he’s pictured with Internet celeb Grumpy Cat.
Dave Roth took the above photo of his daughter during a drill by the local fire department. He noticed that she was smiling like she had something to hide. The photo immediately blew up, and now Disaster Girl is all grown up. Roth took this updated photo of his daughter as a tongue-in-check nod to her devilish meme.
Johnny Solis showed up at midnight to sing his friend Happy Birthday. She took a picture and posted it to Facebook with the caption “I am so blessed to have such great friends. Thank you sososomuch Jonathan!” The rest was Internet history – and we don’t know if Solis ever got out of the friendzone.
