My awkward camping photo got picked up by a meme page and now I can't go to the grocery store without someone recognizing me

Last July I was on a trip to Lake Tahoe and my buddy snapped a picture of me trying to start a fire with wet wood, face all screwed up in concentration. He posted it to his Instagram story and some meme account with 2 million followers reposted it, captioned 'me trying to fix my life.' I woke up to 400 notifications and now random people come up to me at Target asking for a picture. Has anyone else had a random photo blow up and change your everyday life?

2 comments

2 Comments

jessica_hall4910d ago

Man that's wild but I totally get it. Something similar happened to me a couple years back at a Fourth of July barbecue. My cousin caught me mid bite of a burger with ketchup all down my chin and some sports meme page ran with it. Now every time I run into someone from high school they bring up the "ketchup king" photo. It's honestly annoying but also kind of funny how people recognize you for something so random. You just gotta lean into it and laugh.

johnson.jason10d ago

Funny you mention leaning into it, I actually just read an article about how some people basically build a whole side hustle off these random viral moments. There's this guy they interviewed who got famous for a video of him falling into a pool at a wedding and now he does paid appearances for pool companies of all things. Not saying you should quit your day job over the ketchup king thing, but in my experience these weird little moments can open doors you never expected. Your mileage may vary though, some people just want to forget and that's fine too.