Antoine Dodson: You are so dumb?
Flashback to 2010, glee is still on the air, Taylor is still singing sweet country songs and Jersey Shore is dominating pop culture. This is also the year in which an iconic meme was born, featuring Antoine Dodson. So hide your kids, hide your wives, because this is how a guy from Alabama went from being interviewed on the local news to making over $50,000.
Antoine Dodson became an overnight sensation after giving a passionate interview to a local Alabama News station, WAFF-48 News, for saving his sister from an intruder trying to sexually assault her. His interview produced not one, but two memes. His famous quote “hide your kids, hide your wives, and hide your husbands” went viral, along with his quote “you are so dumb, you are so dumb”. His interview had people laughing despite it’s serious subject matter, and it was soon being used in memes, gifs and eventually a remix that wold make him a decent amount of cash.
The internet’s love for this meme lead it to being remixed many ways, like most memes are. The Gregory Brothers, also known as schmoyoho on YouTube, are known for auto tuning viral content, and back in 2010 they decided to remix this beauty. It resulted in a remix that has over 139 million views on YouTube, and even today has been put on Spotify and has over a million streams. It was given a punk-rock version, being covered by Paramore’s Hayley Williams.
It sold over 200,000 copies on iTunes, and also lead Antoint to release an EP in the same year called “Love is more than a Song”, which is a wild ride of a listen and doesn’t have any relation content wise to his viral video. Rumours say that he was able to raise money through fundraising, ads and merchandise from his meme status that made him an estimated $50,000. Through this internet success Antoine says he was able to move his family out of the neighbourhood they were living in when the intruder entered their home.
The Gregory Brothers were able to get Antoine into Billboards hottest 100 chart, and credited Antoine with song writing credit. This allowed the Dodson family to receive 50% of the songs revenue. The Gregory Brothers can also be remembered for their “Double Rainbow” song, and in recently have been responsible for Netflix’s “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” theme song. Antoine’s ability to make money off his viral act was very much accredited to The Gregory brothers, which were very morally sound in including him in the song-writing credits as a co-write, where under copyright laws they weren’t necessarily obligated to do as they would’ve likely been protected under it being a parody.
Although this meme was born from a dark place and subject, its success brought light out of a bad situation. Leaving Antoine with some money in his pocket, and a safer life for his family.
P.S. I left his other music under here if you’re interested…it’s a goodtime
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