Inside the Original Photo: Where the Immortal Squinting Meme Actually Came From

Learn why Inside the Original Photo: Where the Immortal Squinting Meme Actually Came From remains a key topic in this detailed write-up.

Finding oneself transformed into a universal digital shorthand produces radically different life trajectories. While the subject of the guy squinting meme managed to preserve a remarkably quiet life away from commercial exploitation, other icons of the same genre took very different paths.

Consider video producer Drew Scanlon, whose two-second double-take on a video game livestream became the ubiquitous blinking white guy meme. Scanlon did not initiate his viral stardom. Yet rather than filing intellectual property lawsuits or receding from view, Scanlon redirected his global visibility into substantial public benefit. Over multiple campaigns, Scanlon leveraged his famous blinking face gif to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society through the annual Bike MS ride.

Similarly, when Louisiana native Kalina Kovalenko discovered that a photo of her catching her breath in sunglasses had become the viral squat and squint meme, she engaged the public with self-effacing humor. The unbothered squinting photo had been shot after an exhausting climb, completely divorced from the witty captions users pasted atop it. These occurrences illustrate how private moments get commandeered by global audiences, testing an individual's resilience against uncontrollable online syndication.