Bad Luck Brian — Meme History
Bad Luck Brian is one of the world’s most popular memes that started in 2012. The image depicts a blonde male (‘Brian’) teenager wearing a plaid sweater vest and braces. The reason this picture has gotten so popular is because of Brian’s smile and physical presence in the school photo.
The meme first appeared on Reddit by Ian Davis, who is a friend of Kyle’s (Brian’s real name) since elementary. The yearbook photo was posted and only received 5 up votes. The caption read….
Then another Reddit user remade the meme, with the caption…
This new post received over 3,300 up votes! The meme was posted on multiple sites including Pinterest, Buzzfeed, and Funny or Die. As the meme spread across the internet, more and more people liked the photo and recreated their own version.
How the meme layout works is that the top part usually contains the description of a common situation (This is most commonly a lucky situation). The bottom part reveals the bad result.
The real teenagers name is Kyle Craven, and without realizing it he became internet famous. For three years, Bad Luck Brian was in the middle of meme fame. The character became a part of his identity and will be with him for the rest of his life.
On picture day, Kyle went to a discount store and bought a plaid sweater vest. When waiting in line for his photo to be taken, he rubbed his face (to make it red), squinted his eyes and puffed out his jaw. Although Kyle and his friends thought the photo was hilarious, he was told to come to photo retakes by the principal. His friend saved the photo and posted it to the internet shortly after.
Now that Kyle is older and in the working field, he tries to stay away from his Bad Luck Brian identity. Since Kyle looks different in real life, he is not recognized as often as people think.
The good news behind the meme is that between licensing deals and T-shirts, he estimated that he made between $15,000 and $20,000 off Bad Luck Brian in the three years the meme has been alive.
The meme will continue to be recreated and will be in meme history forever. Kyle has loved his time as ‘Bad Luck Brian’ and is glad that the experience happened. He is still able to continue through life without any backlash and will continue to succeed in whatever field he chooses.
