15 Celebrity Holiday Cards Gone Viral
Celebrities are at the forefront of holiday spirit by giving new life to the classic Christmas card. We used our analytics tool at WhereOnThe.Net to trace which of these cards have generated the most hits on the web after being posted on social media.
Warning: A lot of Photoshop and a surprising amount of nudity.
Janet Jackson (2012)
Singer Janet Jackson shared her annual holiday card a few days before Christmas in 2012 on her Twitter account. The card uses an older image first spotted online in 2010 and did not gain much momentum on the Internet until the holiday season in 2014. The image spiked in occurrences after Jackson was honored at the BET Awards in June 2015.
Since first appearing in September 2010, this is how it has spread online on websites like Clutch Magazine and Huffington Post Spain.
Mena Suvari (2013)
Actress Mena Suvari and her boyfriend, Sal Sanchez, pose on a couch beside her cat, Ms. Blanca, who can also been seen floating above them in the photo. The image was shot and created by photographer Revecka Natalia.
The image appeared on 260 unique pages on websites like Perez Hilton and even the NY Daily News — occurrences spiking in December 2014 and April 2015. Distribution per website looks a little like this.
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi (2013)
Comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, created a Kim Kardashian and Kanye West-inspired card that reads, “Bound for a Merry Christmas.” This particular photo of DeGeneres debuting the card on her show went viral after Kris Jenner posted it on her Instagram account. For those who haven’t seen it, here is the “Bound 2” music video that inspired DeGeneres’ photoshop masterpiece.
The image has emerged on 58 websites and 215 unique pages — peaking in occurrences in May 2015. Since first appearing in December 2013, this is how it has spread to websites like Today and Entertainment Tonight.
Fergie and Josh Duhamel (2012)
Surprise: This is actually another creation from Ellen DeGerenes. Singer Fergie appeared on The Ellen Show in December 2012 and mentioned how her and her husband, actor Josh Duhamel, were behind on creating a card because he was working on a new movie. DeGerenes offered to help and this is what she came up with.
The card didn’t actually reach the web until March 2013, but it has now appeared on 283 webpages, ranging from US Weekly to ElleGirl Japan, with occurrences spiking between January and March 2014. Here’s a glimpse of the distribution per website.
Sean “Diddy” Combs (2013)
Rapper Sean Combs, also known by his stage names Puff Daddy, Puffy, Diddy, and P. Diddy, gathers his six children for their 2013 holiday card. While Combs tweeted the image in 2013, it didn’t peak in occurrences until the following year in December 2014.
Since first appearing in December 2013, this fashionable photograph has inspired families worldwide through 72 websites and over 375 unique pages, including Pinterest and Baller Alert. This is a look at how it has spread online over time.
Kelly Clarkson (2013)
Singer Kelly Clarkson decided to go for a decidedly different vibe for her family’s first Christmas card. The photo featured herself, her husband Brandon Blackstock, Blackstock’s two children from his first marriage and their two dogs. Oh, and Santa Claus of course.
The picture has appeared on 86 individual websites since it was first posted in December 2013, primarily on news or gossip services such as Toronto Sun, The Hollywood Gossip and Huffington Post. This is how the 374 total occurrences have spread online.
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi (2014)
The duo once again drew inspiration from Kim Kardashian with their 2014 holiday card. The card features DeGeneres and Rossi photoshopped onto Kardashian’s now infamous #BreakTheInternet nude shot. For those missed the reference, the original image can be found here.
This card immediately went viral after being posted in November 2014. Within one month, there were over 900 occurrences, out of the 973 total occurrences to date, on websites such as Stylist and Refinery29. Distribution per website looks a little like this.
Miley Cyrus (2013)
Singer Miley Cyrus showed support for the Free the Nipple campaign when she tweeted this image in December 2013.
This was another card that the popularity instantly skyrocketed after the image was posted. Before the end of December 2013, Cyrus’ photo reached over 1,000 occurrences on websites like The Daily Dot and Vh1.com. The image spiked again in December 2014 and has appeared on over 280 websites and 1,592 unique pages to date with distribution per website looking like this.
Joe Jonas (2013)
Apparently cat cards were trendy in 2013. Musician Joe Jonas went in a similar direction as Suvari with this clearly Photoshopped picture. Jonas loses points for originality though because, while he may have made it famous after posting it in December 2013, this image is based off of a pre-existing “awkward holiday photo” that our tracker picked up from 2010.
Though he shared it in 2013, the image didn’t become widespread until it’s first big spike where it gained nearly 700 occurrences between January and April 2014. Today it has reached 1,766 unique pages on 274 websites, including Crushable and E! Online. Here is how the image has spread on the Internet over time.
James Franco and Seth Rogan (2014)
Actors Seth Rogan and James Franco got cozy with Father Christmas for their risqué 2014 Christmas card.
The image’s popularity soared as soon as it was posted in December 2014, hitting most of it’s 3,441 total occurrences by January 2015. As seen below, though, over 2,000 of those appearances were on Daily Mail Online. The photo was also featured on 50 other websites, including Mirror.
Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson (2014)
When longtime couple actress Diane Kruger and actor Joshua Jackson shared their holiday card on Instagram in December 2014, there was buzz around the hashtag #missingonlyoneveryimportantfamilymember. Turns out, Kruger was referring to their cat, Hobbes.
Most of the hits for this image came from Canadian magazines or websites. For example, 2,315 of the 4,399 total occurrences appearing on HELLO! Online. The image peaked in January 2015 and now can be found on 37 websites. The distribution per website looks a little like this.
Tori Spelling (2014)
Even after a rough year dealing with her husband Dean McDermott’s infidelity, actress and author Tori Spelling was still able to get the entire family together and create a Pinterest-worthy 2014 holiday card using Simply to Impress.
The card may have only appeared on 34 websites, but within those it has been on 4,662 unique pages — over 4,500 of those happened within one month of the original post. Here is a look at the distribution per website, featuring the primary location of the occurrences TooFab.
The Kardashian-Jenner Family (2013)
The Kardashian-Jenner clan is known for their impressively glamorous holiday photoshoots year after year and 2013 was no exception. The picture, shot by photographer David LaChapelle, features the family posing amongst gold mannequins, money signs and magazines.
The image immediately went viral when it was posted and then spiked again during the 2014 holiday season. It has now been on 348 websites and 4,441 unique pages, such as International Design Times and Celebuzz. Since first appearing in December 2013, this is how it has spread online.
Vanessa and Nick Lachey (2014)
Taken by photographer Rhonda Dent, the 2014 Lachey holiday card was shared on television host Vanessa’s blog with the words: “Today I wanted to wish you a Happy Holiday from my family to yours… it’s my favorite picture of all four of us…at least, so far!”
The photo the Lachey’s used for this card was the same image that boomed when Vanessa had the baby in early January 2015. Even before that, the image had already reached over 4,500 of its 6,107 total occurrences. It has now been featured on websites like Life & Style Weekly and Just Jared — with the distribution looking a little like this.
Elizabeth Hurley
Actress turned designer Elizabeth Hurley shows off her latest swim suit collection in a series of holiday cards featuring herself in a Santa hat and various red bikinis within a winter scene of wild animals and snow.
Since it was posted in December 2014, the image has appeared on 8,948 unique pages through websites like Yahoo! Lifestyle and Women Only Greece. Although this image did appear on the highest number of pages, you can see below that 98 percent of the occurrences were from the Daily Mail Online.
Got a favorite celebrity holiday card image you’d like to learn more about? Find out where it is and where it’s been with WhereOnThe.Net and share your results with us.
WhereOnThe.Net traces how images spread online. Whether you want to find copies of your own work or track viral images, we crawl the Internet and show you all the sites it has appeared on and it’s growth over time.
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