15 People Behind the Meme Where Are They Now?

When you get famous on the Internet, you can bet that the old adage of, “Once it's on the Internet, it's there forever” is too true, especially when you're a meme. We're not going to bore you with what a meme is (if you're reading this, you probably already know), but when the photo in question is taken entirely out of context, it can definitely make for some pretty hilarious captioned moments! While all memes have real people behind them (except for the one's of Arthur's Hand, Evil Kermit, or Caveman Spongebob, of course), we on the Internet give them new names, like Bad Luck Brian, Success Kid, and Salt Bae! In fact, we get SO attached to them in meme form, we kind of forget that the thing that made them famous is maybe not such a good idea. Can you imagine how hard it would be to date or get a job if you were known online as Scumbag Steve? So, in an effort to peel back and reveal the people behind the meme, check out how your 15 of favorites came to be, and where they are now.

15 Salt Bae

Why season your food like a normal person when you can season like #SaltBae? Once the Internet caught sight of Salt Bae flamboyantly sprinkling and sensually rubbing down meat, everyone found themselves more thirsty for him than for whatever he was cooking! The guy behind the meme is actually a Turkish chef and restaurant owner named Nusret Gökçe, and his photo has been used for more than just eye candy and has instead been an example of such things as “When I use the word 'thus' in a paper” and “Subsequently. Nevertheless. Furthermore” (you get the idea).

Since his explosive meme, Salt Bae has been imitated by celebrities, fans, in art, and parodied as people like Donald Trump and Tom Brady. In addition to opening a new restaurant in the UK and serving and sprinkling the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Roger Federer, Gökçe owns five steakhouses and two burger joints, and while he can't speak English, we imagine he's certainly enjoying the viral fame that's bringing people into his restaurants!

14 Attractive Convict

The female counterpart to the felon who stole our hearts, Jeremy Meeks (who is now making bank as a male model), Meagan McCullough was similarly breaking hearts and taking names with a steamy mug shot that saw the pretty woman giving a Tyra Banks-level smize to the camera, despite being in an orange jumpsuit. While the mug shot was taken in 2010 for McCullough's DUI, it was three years later when it began making the rounds on the Internet.

A mom of four, the then-27-year-old McCullough wasn't totally thrilled with her photo circulating online - but not because she was ashamed of her arrest. Instead, McCullough said she didn't understand the hoopla because she doesn't think it's a good picture! “There are other ones I would prefer,” she said. Despite getting tons of wedding proposals after her mug shot made the rounds on the Internet, McCullough (who now goes by Simmons) seems busy with her four kids and a look that appears a bit different from her #attractiveconvict days.

13 McKayla Maroney / Not Impressed

Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney wasn't exactly unknown, but it was the image captured of her showing off her unimpressed face when she failed to register a score sufficiently high enough at the 2012 Olympics that really catapulted her to international fame. She even met with President Barack Obama, where he tried to imitate her signature expression for a photo op!

Since her time as a gymnast, Maroney has gracefully bowed out of the sport in 2016 after receiving a series of injuries and follow-up surgeries. Since then, she's revamped her look to become the kind of thing Instagram dreams are made of, complete with fluttery eyelashes, overlined lips, and ombre hair. She's not completely out of the spotlight, either, as she's taken to acting and singing, and has appeared on a couple of TV shows, including Bones and Hart of Dixie. Perhaps now McKayla will have something to look impressed about!

12 Cash Me Ousside

Probably the biggest meme of the year so far, the girl behind the infamous “Cash Me Ousside, Howbow Dah?” meme, Danielle Bregoli, became an Internet sensation after appearing on The Dr. Phil Show in September 2016 when she was just 13. Aside from her swagger and anger issues, it was Bregoli's strange accent (which she said was “from the streets”) that earned her the meme that's made her famous, and she's been able to cash in on her success in a way that no other meme star has.

Now 14, Bregoli charges for appearances and has her own online store where she sells meme-inspired merch. Even Dr. Phil recognized the cash cow he had, and invited her back for a follow-up, where he realized, if fame is gonna go to your head and make you insufferable, it'll be even stronger when it goes to the head of a willful teenage girl. Only time will tell is Danielle if able to continue milking her (almost expired) 15 minutes of fame!

11 Ridiculously Photogenic Guy

Remember the guy who was impossibly good looking and put together in the middle of a 10k marathon? It turns out that the popularity of the image featuring a man that stole the hearts of women everywhere, Zeddie Little (what a name!), was actually a fluke, as his photo was put up on a computer programmer's Flickr account, who had been taking shots of the marathon. Like a lot of memes, someone spotted it, shared it on Reddit, and the rest is pretty much history!

After media outlets desperately tried to track him down, they discovered that Little was in a committed relationship and very much enjoying his job in public relations. In an interview with Good Morning America, Little said that he had been waving to friends on the sidelines, which is why he looked so cheerful! Since his time as a meme, Little has kind of fallen out the public eye (as the subjects of memes do) and hasn't even tweeted since 2012!

10 Alex from Target

Oh, Alex from Target, the meme that had girls everywhere begging their moms to take them to the superstore for something a little more exciting than killer deals. Back in 2014, Alex was on everyone's minds and screens with his dreamy looks that seemed out of place in somewhere as mundane as Target, and not a whole lot has changed since, as you can see from the photos above! He's since leveraged his Internet fame into a singing and acting career, and if that headshot is to be believed, he's looking as professional and handsome as ever! From his appearances on Ellen to the millions of followers on his social media accounts (check out his Instagram at @alexleeworld for some major-league cuteness), Alex from Target seems to have shed his cashier past - his bio even says, “I was a cashier” - and fully embraced life in the spotlight as a former Internet meme and heartthrob.

9 Hipster Barista

Is it that surprising that Hipster Barista, aka Dustin Mattson, is actually not so thrilled with his rise to Internet stardom? With his V-neck shirt, thick-framed glasses, tattoos, scarf, and beard, Mattson was ripe for the teasing - only he thinks the jokes aren't that funny. “If anyone were to see me and my coworkers' work in the café, they'd see that it doesn't quite match up to most of the jokes made against 'Hipster Barista'.” Whatever you say, killjoy!

There's not a whole lot of information available about Mattson, whose meme became a thing in 2011 and whose Twitter has been silent since 2014 (although it did say that he was still steaming and serving up coffee), but we do know that he's married and has a dog. We imagine that Twitter is too mainstream for the Internet's favorite hipster, so maybe that's why he's gone radio silent in recent years!

8 College Freshman

It turns out that College Freshman was actually a college freshman! At the time, Griffin Kiritsy agreed to a photograph and an interview for Reader's Digest, but he probably would've thought twice about it had he known that he would become an unrelenting meme for all things stupid freshman do in their first year at college.

Kiritsy has since graduated from college (fortunately), but not before he was morphed into Successful College Senior, which seems like it was the Internet's apology for making him suffer so many trials and tribulations during the freshman year that made him famous. The photo was taken in 2007 (Kiritsy graduated in 2012), and everything seems to have gone back to normal for the guy who was the poster kid for everything first-year students do wrong. However, he's taken back the privacy the Internet stole from him, and has since protected his tweets from prying eyes.

7 Scumbag Steve

Would it shock you to know that Scumbag Steve is actually kind of a scumbag in real life? In real life, Scumbag Steve - who actually goes by Blake Boston - became the unwitting subject of a cruel yet hilarious meme when his own mother snapped a photo of him when he was unaware, and the meme of the guy who shows up a party empty-handed and cheats on his girlfriend was born. At the time, the teenage Boston was pretty pissed at being turned into an online joke, and even flipped off people who asked if he was in fact the meme that made him famous.

Fortunately for Boston, he came around to the meme, and began to accept it all in his stride, effectively scrubbing the “scumbag” part from his persona (the hat rests on his windowsill). He even pretended to be Scumbag Steve for the benefit of rap videos he posted on YouTube! Now, Boston is a dad to two boys and working as an entertainer and rapper.

6 Overly Attached Girlfriend

The poster girl for creepy, obsessive girlfriends everywhere, Overly Attached Girlfriend had a lot of people scared for their personal safety with her wide eyes and even wider smile. Her real name is actually Laina Morris, now 25, and she first came into the public eye with a parody video of Justin Bieber's “Boyfriend” in 2012. Morris ended up being the creator of her own fame, it seemed, because even though a screengrab of her video is what started the meme, Morris was actually in on the joke the entire time! Since then, she's continued being on YouTube, uploading skits and videos that play into her image as Overly Attached Girlfriend, appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and even won a staring contest against Jessica Alba! An entertainer through and through, Morris took the meme the Internet gave her and totally ran with it, giving her a lasting dose of fame and notoriety that is too funny to look away from!

5 Bad Luck Brian

Poor Bad Luck Brian! The brace-faced kid with a plaid vest became a meme after his friend uploaded his seventh-grade photo simply because he thought it was funny. And boy, was he right! Bad Luck Brian, who was forced to head to the front of the class with an erection and whose parents divorced but no one wanted custody, is actually named Kyle Craven, and he was introduced to online stardom in 2012.

Less unlucky in real life (he's since said he enjoys his time as a real life meme, and that Seth Rogen even recognized him), Craven has outgrown the braces and bad fashion sense of his meme, but his goofy smile is still definitely there! Now, he spends his time creating videos for YouTube and managing his Facebook, where he fully embraces Bad Luck Brian's terrible luck and uses it for laughs. Hey, it's always better to be in on the joke than be the butt of it, right?

4 Ermahgerd! Girl

Another awkward adolescent, Ermahgerd! Girl got her start on the Internet with a photo that showed her getting a touch too excited over a bunch of Goosebumps books. In a rare instance where a meme's words actually outlive the meme itself, “Ermahgerd!” has been used again and again, with or without the presence of its meme subject.

The girl behind the meme is actually Maggie Goldenberger, and the photo was taken when she was 11. Now 27, Goldenberger first heard about her Internet fame when she was backpacking through India, and her friends were delighted with her new identity as the Ermahgerd! Girl. Maggie, however, says she wishes that her 15 minutes of fame could've come in another form, but that “you get what you get”. Tons of merchandise has been produced around the meme, from stationary and decals, to keychains and clothes, even to cross-stitch patterns, but Goldenberger doesn't get any of the return. The upside for her though is that, 16 years after the photo was taken, few people even recognize her anymore!

3 First World Problems Girl

The ideal meme for when you wanted to express your dismay over limited salad bar toppings or the fact that only one kind of white wine was available at the restaurant you went to, First World Problems Girl seems to live as charmed a life in real life as in her meme! A model by the name of Silvia Bottini, the now-35-year-old from Italy also leveraged her good looks into acting, appearing in Italian productions of Romeo and Juliet and Alice in Wonderland. Clearly, she's put herself in the public eye quite a bit (she also offers an intensive public speaking course and has appeared in several commercials), but she seems unaware of her Internet fame on this side of the pond. While her meme just has a close-up of her face and tears, one look at any of her modelling shots and you'll see that Bottini certainly has the legs (literally) to move beyond her life as a meme!

2 Disaster Girl

With her side smile and devilish look, Disaster Girl was the last kid you wanted to encounter, for fear that she'd set your house - or you - on fire. Or worse. The photo was first taken in 2004 and was actually just a shot of the fire department's training drill, not Disaster Girl's own house. It was her father who snapped the photo and uploaded it three years later, it was then selected for publication in a 2008 issue of JPG Magazine. Since her time as the girl with the devilish grin, Disaster Girl (who was four years old at the time and whose real name is Zoe Roth) is all grown up and pretty cool with being the face of Disaster Girl - to a point. Sometimes, her image has been photoshopped in less-than-savory places, like on Hitler's body, which made Roth “a little uncomfortable”. She's also not averse to somehow cashing in on her meme fame, saying that it'd be cool if it helped pay her way through college!

1 Success Kid

Success Kid's real name is Sammy Griner, from Florida, and although the photo that made him famous was taken when he was less than a year old, Griner used his fame for a really good cause - just like Success Kid would. Although the image was just of Griner holding a fistful of sand at the beach, once it made its way onto MySpace, Reddit, and a Russian Photoshop thread, he was turned into Success Kid. The recognizable photo was used on billboards and in ads for Vitamin Water and the UK's Virgin Media, in addition to across the Internet.

Now 10 years old, Griner was able to use the success of Success Kid to raise money for a kidney transplant for his father, via a GoFundMe page that raised more than their $1 million goal. Good news for Success Kid: the surgery took place in 2015 and was a complete success!