Bad Luck Brian

Last updated

Bad Luck Brian
Bad Luck Brian.jpg
16 year old Kyle Craven in 11th grade, class of 2005, in the "Bad Luck Brian" photo he is known for
Born
Kyle Edward Craven

(1989-08-10) August 10, 1989 (age 35)
Education Archbishop Hoban High School
Years active2012-present
Known forBad Luck Brian meme

Kyle Edward Craven (born August 10, 1989), commonly known by his Internet nickname "Bad Luck Brian", is an American Internet celebrity known for his ubiquitous photo posted on Reddit in 2012, which quickly became a popular Internet meme. Bad Luck Brian is an image macro style of meme. His captions describe a variety of unlucky, embarrassing and tragic events.

Contents

Meme

Origin

On January 23, 2012, at 2:15 UTC, [1] Ian Davies uploaded a photo to Reddit of his friend Kyle Craven. [2] Craven and Davies both attended Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio. [3] The photo which became Bad Luck Brian was originally taken for the high school's 200506 yearbook. Craven stated that he rubbed his face with a sweater to redden it and donned a goofy smile. The school principal required him to retake the photo, but Craven and Davies had already scanned and saved the original picture. [4] The photo quickly became popular on the image board 4chan, and social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, depicting "a guy who can't catch a break [...] a symbol for a stroke of hilarious bad luck". [2]

Notable depictions

In 2013, Bad Luck Brian (depicted by Craven himself) featured in a YouTube video sketch alongside fellow meme Overly Attached Girlfriend, where the two characters go on a date. This collaboration prompted Craven to create his own Bad Luck Brian Youtube channel and accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. [2]

Bad Luck Brian was turned into T-shirts, stuffed animals and novelty items sold by Walmart and Hot Topic. [2] He starred in ad campaigns for companies like Volkswagen. In October 2018, Craven did a series of advertisements for McDonald's featuring the Bad Luck Brian character, which were featured on YouTube, Reddit, and Spotify. [5] [6] Including licensing deals and merchandise, Craven estimates he made $20,000 within three years since 2015. [7]

In March 2021, Craven sold a Bad Luck Brian non-fungible token (NFT) for around $36,000. [8]

Later in 2021, he appeared in the Slovak viral campaign for Klostermann Orthodontics. The controversial campaign promoting clear aligners used a theme of meme copyright infringement. [9] The revealing video of Bad Luck Brian confirming the cooperation was widely distributed on the Slovak Internet. The campaign, created by local agency Kreatívna Dvojica, was awarded in several advertising competitions. [10]

In 2023, Craven appeared in character as Bad Luck Brian for a commercial for insurance company The General alongside Shaquille O'Neal. [11]

Personal life

A Redditor claiming to be Bad Luck Brian attempted to do an AMA thread in the "Ask Me Anything" subreddit on April 11, 2012, but the thread was removed. Craven returned to a different Advice Animals subreddit on May 8, 2012, with an AMA thread. [12]

Craven is the chief operating officer at his father's church construction company. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet meme</span> Cultural item spread via the Internet

An Internet meme, or simply meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations. Characteristics of memes include their susceptibility to parody, their use of intertextuality, their propagation in a viral pattern, and their evolution over time. The name is from the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reddit</span> American social news and discussion site

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "subreddits". Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Reddit administrators moderate the communities. Moderation is also conducted by community-specific moderators, who are unpaid volunteers. It is operated by Reddit, Inc., based in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mister Splashy Pants</span> Humpback whale who is popular online

Mister Splashy Pants, or Mr Splashypants, is a humpback whale in the South Pacific Ocean. It is being tracked with a satellite tag by Greenpeace as a part of its Great Whale Trail Expedition, which was working to raise awareness about whales threatened by the Japanese Fisheries Agency's hunting of 50 humpback whales annually. The whale's name was chosen in an online poll that garnered attention from several websites, including Boing Boing and Reddit, quickly becoming an internet meme. Mister Splashy Pants became the subject of a TED Talk by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, titled "How to make a splash in social media."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Bit My Finger</span> 2007 Internet viral video

"Charlie bit my finger - again !", more simply known as "Charlie Bit My Finger" or "Charlie Bit Me", is a 2007 internet viral video famous for being at the time the most viewed YouTube video. As of October 2022, the video received over 897 million views. In May 2021, the video was sold as an NFT at auction for over $700,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Overly Attached Girlfriend</span> Internet meme

Overly Attached Girlfriend (OAG) is a fictional character and an Internet meme originating in a YouTube video published on June 6, 2012. The character was created by Laina Morris. The video was a submission to a contest held by Justin Bieber who challenged fans to create a "Girlfriend" counterpart to his hit song "Boyfriend". The video, which satirized elements of the Bieber song that have been perceived as clingy, featured Morris staring at the camera with a fixed smile while singing about Facebook-stalking her boyfriend and other themes.

Some communities on the social news site Reddit are devoted to explicit, violent, propagandist, or hateful material, and have been the topic of controversy, at times receiving significant media coverage. The founders of Reddit did not claim they intended the platform to be a "bastion of free speech", yet for a period of time allowed such communities to operate largely unrestricted. Eventually usage rules were instituted to allow for the ban of groups and members who promoted illegal activity, violence, personal information or image theft and exposure, shaming, racial or gender hatred, harassment, and extremist speech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hector Janse van Rensburg</span> British artist and redditor

Hector Richard Janse van Rensburg, better known by his pseudonym Shitty Watercolour, is a British painter and cartoonist who started posting watercolour paintings on the social media website Reddit in February 2012, and later expanded to publishing his work on his own website, on Tumblr and on Twitter. He graduated from the University of York with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doge (meme)</span> Internet meme

Doge is an Internet meme that became popular in 2013. The meme consists of a picture of a Shiba Inu dog, accompanied by multicolored text in Comic Sans font in the foreground. The text, representing a kind of internal monologue, is deliberately written in a form of broken English. The meme originally and most frequently uses an image of a Shiba Inu named Kabosu, though versions with other Shiba Inus are also popular.

Social media played an important role in shaping the course of events surrounding the 2016 United States presidential election. It facilitated greater voter interaction with the political climate; unlike traditional media, social media gave people the ability to create, comment on, and share content related to the election.

r/The_Donald Subreddit in support of U.S. president Donald Trump

r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and Internet memes in support of U.S. president Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots". The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting. It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Wurtz</span> American musician and video producer

Bill Wurtz is an American musician, singer-songwriter, video producer, animator, and internet personality. He is known for his distinctive style of music, with deadpan delivery and singing, and his animated music videos, with surrealist, psychedelic graphics.

r/IAmA Reddit forum for question-and-answer interactive interviews

r/IAmA is a subreddit for question-and-answer interactive interviews termed "AMA". AMA interviewees have ranged from various celebrities to everyday people in several lines of work. Founded in May 2009, the subreddit has gone on to become one of Reddit's most popular communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumption of Tide Pods</span> Hazardous practice and Internet meme

Like most detergent products, Tide Pods, a laundry detergent pod sold by Procter & Gamble (P&G) since 2012, can be deadly if ingested. Media reports have discussed how children and those with dementia could mistake laundry pods for candy and endanger their health or life by consuming them, and they were named an emerging health risk by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2012. Between 2012 and 2013, poison control centers reported over 7,000 cases of young children eating laundry pods, and ingestion of laundry pods produced by P&G had resulted in six deaths by 2017. In response to the dangers, P&G changed Tide Pod containers to an opaque design, introduced warning labels, and added a bitter-tasting chemical to the pod contents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Distracted boyfriend</span> Stock photograph and internet meme

Distracted boyfriend is an Internet meme based on a 2015 stock photograph by Spanish photographer Antonio Guillem. Social media users started using the image as a meme at the start of 2017, and it went viral in August 2017 as a way to depict different forms of disloyalty. The meme has inspired various spin-offs and received critical acclaim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NPC (meme)</span> An insult that implies a person lacks critical thinking

The NPC, derived from non-player character, is an Internet meme that represents people who do not think for themselves or do not make their own decisions; those who lack introspection or intrapersonal communication. The meme gained further viral status on TikTok, with the surge of "NPC Streamers". In terms of politics, it's often been used by those with anti-establishment views to describe those who fail to question authority, "groupthink", or a stance that would display conformity and obedience. The NPC meme, which graphically is based on the Wojak meme, was created in July 2016 by an anonymous author and first published on the imageboard 4chan, where the idea and inspiration behind the meme were introduced.

r/wallstreetbets Subreddit dedicated to stock market and options trading

r/wallstreetbets, also known as WallStreetBets or WSB, is a subreddit where participants discuss stock and option trading. It has become notable for its colorful jargon, aggressive trading strategies, stories of extreme gains and losses acquired in the stock market, and for playing a major role in the GameStop short squeeze that caused significant losses for a number of US hedge funds and short sellers for a duration of time in early 2021.

<i>Disaster Girl</i> Internet meme

Disaster Girl is a name given to a photograph of a young girl staring at the camera with a structure fire behind her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roll Safe</span> Internet meme

Roll Safe is an Internet meme in which British filmmaker and actor Kayode Ewumi, while portraying the character Reece Simpson in his own web series Hood Documentary, is seen tapping his finger on his head. The images are used, often with joking caption, to mock poor decision-making and failures in critical thinking.

r/antiwork is a subreddit associated with contemporary labor movements, critique of work, corporate capitalism and the anti-work movement. The forum's slogan reads: "Unemployment for all, not just the rich!" Posts on the forum commonly describe employees' negative experiences at work, dissatisfaction with working conditions, and unionization. Various actions that have been promoted on the subreddit include a consumer boycott of Black Friday as well as the submission of fake jobs applications to the Kellogg Company after the company announced plans to replace 1,400 striking workers during the 2021 Kellogg's strike. The popularity of r/antiwork increased in 2020 and 2021, and the subreddit gained 900,000 subscribers in 2021 alone, accumulating nearly 1,700,000 subscribers by the end of the year. It is often associated with other ideologically similar subreddits such as r/latestagecapitalism. r/antiwork has been compared to the Occupy Wall Street movement due to the subreddit's intellectual foundations and decentralized ethos.

References

  1. "Bad Luck Brian". Reddit. January 24, 2012. Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Contrera, Jessica (January 5, 2015). "Being Bad Luck Brian: When the meme that made you famous starts to fade away". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
  3. "Washington Post profiles Cuyahoga Falls native behind 'Bad Luck Brian' meme". Cleveland.com. January 6, 2015. Retrieved January 11, 2018.
  4. "Anatomy of a meme: The real story of Bad Luck Brian, his viral class portrait and the fleeting nature of online fame". National Post . Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. January 6, 2015. ISSN   1486-8008. Archived from the original on November 24, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023. The phone call that made him famous came at 4 a.m. on Jan. 24, 2012. He was very much asleep
  5. McDonald's (October 5, 2018), Trick. Treat. Win!: Bad Luck Brian | McDonald's , retrieved October 9, 2018
  6. Fernandez, Jacqueline (October 11, 2018). "McDonald's Takes Another Stab At Meme Marketing With 'Bad Luck Brian' Ad". AListdaily. Archived from the original on July 9, 2020. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  7. Kinney, Mary (January 7, 2015). "'Bad Luck Brian' meme brings in a big paycheck". AOL.
  8. Rosenblatt, Kalhan (April 29, 2021). "A meme gold rush? Classic viral images are selling as NFTs for thousands of dollars". Nbcnews.com. NBC News. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  9. "Bad Luck Brian promotes invisible braces (Case study)". YouTube .
  10. "Bad Luck Brian - Ortodoncia Klostermann".
  11. "Bad Luck Brian | Shaq & Kyle Craven | the General Insurance Commercial". YouTube .
  12. "10 good facts about Bad Luck Brian, the unluckiest meme". The Daily Dot . January 27, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  13. Gidan, Jenn (January 6, 2015). "An Internet Meme's Real Life: Building Churches". Newser. Retrieved January 6, 2015.