The Stories Behind Some of Your Favorite Online Images

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It’s hard to imagine a time when an image became popular without the Internet. How was that even possible? What took years of circulating in newspapers and on television now takes minutes as photos are swiftly posted and reposted throughout cyberspace. In fact, it’s been said that more pictures are taken every two minutes around the world in modern times than were taken during the entire 19th century.

There seems to be a trade-off, however. The instant sharing, posting, and reposting combined with the often anonymous nature of the Internet has fogged the lens of origin when looking at the world’s most popular images. Who took the photograph? What was the context? Are the photographer and/or subject aware of their digital fame? Once upon a time this kind of popularity was represented by magazine covers, posters, and humorous incarnations on late-night TV where credit was given in some fashion or another. Nowadays who knows where these interesting photos come from nine times out of 10?

The way to find out the origin stories of our favorite online images only seems hard because of how much replication and repetition is out there these days. The process is actually reasonably easy. It starts with a reverse image lookup. Not just any ordinary one. Use a service that lets you look up the source for any image online. At the very least, this will lead the searcher to learning the name of the image, which can then assist in further Web search efforts.

For example, consider the backstories of these favorite online images, most of them having transformed into memes:

Strutting Leo

Social media can’t stop ranting about how badly Leonardo DiCaprio deserves an Oscar, but for many guys he is and always will be the sissy artist in Titanic who couldn’t think to grab some flotsam for himself. However, even the most anti-Leo guys out there enjoy a chuckle when the “Strutting Leo” picture pop up on Facebook and elsewhere online. The more tragic or seemingly relevant background image to drop Strutting Leo onto, the better. But where did this silly image come from in the first place?

The answer is….the set of Inception. The original photograph, likely taken by an unnamed freelance photographer, is credited to a series of celebrity gossip sites online. It’s one of a series featuring DiCaprio and co-star Ellen Page, the one taken at just the right time.

Confession Bear

In 2012 a member of the Reddit online community successfully launched a new meme known as Confession Bear . It consists of a Malaysian sun bear with a bummed-out expression overlaid with text owning up to a secret that is occasionally offensive but mostly just a grievance most of us can quietly relate to on some level. Yet has anyone ever wondered where this sun bear was, where he is, and where he’s going in life?

Reverse picture search helped establish that Mr. Sun Bear had his famous photo taken in 2007 by photographer Clemens Bilan. Bilan submitted the photograph to Getty Images where it lay dormant for five years before reemerging as a meme for men and women to anonymously declare their love for Nickelback, among other taboos.

The Snowpocalypse

Every time a usually balmy part of the country gets unusually cold and snowy, there seems to be an over-the-top reaction by the locals. This kind of illogical behavior extends to regions which should know better too. In recent memory, whenever these events occur there’s usually a social media post of a particular image seemingly out of a disaster movie: a nearly quarter mile stretch of highway covered in cars seemingly stopped in their tracks – one is on fire – all on top of about two inches of snow and ice with a shady looking woman on the phone in the foreground. What’s the story?

This image is a record of the Raleigh Snowpocalypse of 2014. The city was, as you can tell, ill-prepared for snowfall to say the least. Raleigh native Lindsay Webb took the photo, while the woman seemingly calling in the airstrike was eventually identified as fellow North Carolinian Michelle Everest. Oh, the car on fire? According to Web, it was someone revving too much trying to get out of the snow.

Good Guy Greg

Sometimes, try as you might, the origins of a beloved online image simply cannot be found.
Such is the case with the base photo for the famous meme “Good Guy Greg.” The antithesis to “Scumbag Steve”, GGG represents all the wingmen, moving helpers, and all-around class-act guys out there. The problem is that his identity remains unknown. To this day nobody has come forward claiming to be Good Guy Greg, and no attempts to find him have turned fruitful.

The Internet seems to be nothing but shared images these days. While often funny, shocking, or otherwise interesting, it’s worth it to try and find the story behind the meme or the joke. It may put the image in a whole new light.