Their faces have become a byword for success, exasperation and drama after their photos were shared across the world.
They say a picture says a thousand words, but in the early 2000s teenagers found that memes could become a new universal language.
Connecting social-media users across the globe, the ‘success-kid’, ‘disaster girl’ and ‘side-eyeing Chloe’ became common fixtures in day-to-day life.
But after the split-second image was captured, the real-lives behind iconic memes rarely leave the shadows of the internet.
And now the childhood-favourites are all grown up – and while you may instantly recognise their internet personas they are able to fly under the radar.
Here, MailOnline has tracked down the social media sensations – but how many do you recognise?
1. Success Kid
The picture, snapped by his mom, was soon plastered everywhere – even being used by the White House to urge Congress to pass immigration reform in 2013.
Laney Griner from Jacksonville, Florida had snapped the photo of Sammy on the beach when he was 11 months old.
The image looks as if he is punching the air – but she said he was actually about to put sand in his mouth.
She put the photo on her Flickr page in 2007 and two years later, she noticed that it was being used for memes before eventually becoming the beloved ‘Success Kid’ meme around 2010.
His face has featured on billboard, TV commercials and t-shirts, which Mrs Griner called both ‘weird’ and ‘awesome’.
‘By now, it’s just out there,’ she said. ‘What am I going to do? At least it’s positive.’
The meme came to be a literal lifesaver for the Griner family – Sammy’s father Justin was able to raise more than $100,000 to help with medical care costs before having successful kidney transplant surgery in 2015.
The photo of 11 month old Sammy unexpectedly became a sensation, when his eating sand was seen as a sign of success instead
At 18, smiling Sammy is a sweet contrast to his determined ‘success boy’ younger self
Sammy and his father share the success boy pose that helped finance a successful kidney transplant surgery in 2015
In a sweet moment, he and his son recreated the iconic gesture at his hospital bed, raising a fist in triumph.
In a recent photo, posted by his mother, Sammy – who is now 18 – looks all grown up.
With long hair swept across his forehead, he grins at the camera wearing a t-shirt reading: ‘We are all made of star stuff’.
Speaking to BuzzFeed in 2020, he said: ‘It’s weird to be famous as a baby. There wasn’t really a before – really my whole life has been me being Success Kid.
‘It’s kind of hard to comprehend. I’d say I do have a lot of mixed feelings with it, I would go back and forth with being like – I wish I was a normal kid to this is super awesome.
‘In my mind I’m just a normal, lazy teenager usually just doing art and listening to music.’
2. Disaster Girl
Zoe Roth, now 25, became an internet sensation at the age of four when she was pictured standing in front of a burning building with a devilish smirk on her face.
The iconic image won a photography prize in 2008 before being posted online and taking the internet by storm.
The picture has since served as a perfect meme for those who want to depict any disastrous scene or mischievous act.
The star, from Lake Tahoe, later earned $473,000 after deciding to sell the iconic snap as an NFT by a collector known only as @3FMusic.
Zoe was pictured by her father in January 2005 when she and her family were living near a fire station in Mebane, North Carolina.
The family went outside to see a controlled burn – a fire that is intentionally set to clear a property – and Dave snapped a photo of a smirking Zoe in front of the fire.
![The photo of Zoe Roth, now 25, became an internet sensation when she was pictured at the age of four [when she was pictured] standing in front of a burning building with a devilish smirk on her face](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/03/07/15/95954681-14467821-image-a-69_1741362862859.jpg)
The photo of Zoe Roth, now 25, became an internet sensation when she was pictured at the age of four [when she was pictured] standing in front of a burning building with a devilish smirk on her face
The star, from Lake Tahoe, later earned $473,000 after deciding to sell the iconic snap as an NFT by a collector known only as @3FMusic
Zoe was again later captured smiling at a bonfire, a seeming reference to the photo of her as a child that made her famous
Since then, Dave won the JPG magazine’s ‘Emotion Capture’ contest in 2008 and the image went viral after it was posted online.
‘Nobody who is a meme tried to do that, it just ended up that way,’ Zoe told The Raleigh News & Observer. ‘Is it luck? Is it fate? I have no idea. But I will take it.’
She is now a Research Analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
According to their website, she covers intelligent infrastructure, intelligent transportation systems, mobility as a service, public sector AI policy frameworks, sustainability technology, connected vehicles and charging infrastructure and federal policy dedicated to infrastructure.
In 2023 she spoke at the Women in Tech global conference about ‘Breaking into IoT, Perspectives from a Gen Z Analyst’.
When she was at the University of North Carolina she achieved a degree in peace, war and defense with a concentration in intelligence and a minor in Chinese language and politics.
3. Side-eyeing Chloe
In 2013 a little girl unimpressed by a surprise trip to Disneyland was catapulted into meme history.
Side-Eyeing Chloe, as she became known, is still a mainstay on social media sites, and apparently is still loving every minute of her fame.
Chloe Clem, from Salt Lake City, Utah, was just two years old when she became an online hit by accident.
She offered up a deadpan glare in a video recorded by her mother Katie of her sister Lily’s tearful reaction to learning the family were on their way to Disneyland.
Since then, Chloe’s adorable, incredulous face has become the go-to image for people trying to get across a huge variety of emotions over social media.
The photo of ‘Side-Eyeing Chloe,’ as she became known, is still a mainstay on social media sites, and apparently is still loving every minute of her fame
In a photo as a teen, Chloe Clem is all smiles, not sporting the side-eye look that made her famous
Now 15, the teenage star has a stunning 626,000 followers on social media describing herself as the ‘original side-eye queen’.
A decade on from her rocket to stardom, the video of their Disney surprise has surpassed 20 million views on YouTube.
In 2021 they sold the image as a NFT for $74,000 and have been able to boost their balances through sponsorship deals with the likes of Google Pixel.
They used he money to upgrade from their tiny apartment and Chloe’s mother Katie said it has paid for their rent, bills and food.
She told People: ‘In the beginning, it was really fun … You just hop on this train and you say yes to everything.
‘Eventually it got too much with my kids, and I just felt like no one was benefiting from it.’
She added: ‘I think it’s so hard when you’re a parent and you’re getting all of these accolades and all of these things and your kids are famous. It is such a wild ride to be in because it’s about you [and] it’s about them.’
4. Charlie Bit My Finger
When Howard Davies-Carr uploaded a 55-second video to YouTube back in May 2007, he believed it to be little more than ‘mildly funny’.
It featured footage of his two boys in Buckinghamshire, Harry, three, and one-year-old Charlie, and Howard thought their interaction might tickle their godfather in the U.S. It certainly wasn’t intended to be a permanent feature on the site.
But when he went to delete the film a couple of months later, he found that it had thousands of views — and the number was increasing before his eyes.
‘I did think,”Why are all these people watching it?” I certainly didn’t have that many friends,’ the father previously recalled to the Mail.
Now the film Charlie Bit My Finger has become one of the most-viewed viral videos of all time, seen by nearly 900 million people and counting.
The video featured footage of his two boys in Buckinghamshire, Harry, three, and one-year-old Charlie, and Howard thought their interaction might tickle their godfather in the U.S. It certainly wasn’t intended to be a permanent feature on the site
Charlie, now 18, told BBC NewsBeat last month: ‘It was never not a part of my life, it’s always been there’
‘I did think,”Why are all these people watching it?” I certainly didn’t have that many friends,’ the father previously recalled to the Mail. Pictured: Harry, centre left, and Charlie, centre right, with their parents Howard and Shelley in 2021
It also propelled the family into the global spotlight and gained them advertising and sponsorship deals which, over the years, reportedly netted them hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In 2021, the sum was further inflated when Charlie Bit My Finger was auctioned off as an NFT for £537,000.
Howard said: ‘The big thing it allowed Shelley and I to do was decide to have a fourth child and know we could send them all to private school..
Charlie, now 18, told BBC NewsBeat last month: ‘It was never not a part of my life, it’s always been there.
‘It’s not like I use it as an icebreaker or anything. I was never going to use this as a fun fact.
‘But my friends like to tell people [sometimes], so it’s hard keeping it locked down.’
5. Bad Luck Brian
His dorky haircut, sweater-vest, puffy smile, squint and braces made him an unexpected online phenomenon – but the real-life ‘Bad Luck Brian’ was actually a church builder named Kyle.
His high school photo, taken when he was 16, is the visual accompaniment to jokes such as ‘Wears bullet-proof vest… gets shot in the face’, ‘Has a pet rock… it runs away’ and ‘Hires life coach… benched’.
The snap shot to fame after a friend uploaded it to the Reddit forum in 2012 and is struck a chord with the other users, and he joined the ranks of others whose images became inexplicably famous and repeated millions of times.
Craven explained that he was a class clown and made the photo ridiculous on purpose – he bought the sweater from a thrift store, rubbed his cheeks red before posing then pulled a stupid face.
His dorky haircut, sweater-vest, puffy smile, squint and braces made him an unexpected online phenomenon – but the real-life ‘Bad Luck Brian’ was actually a church builder named Kyle
As an adult, Kyle continues to draw attention with photos of himself, with his 10,000 followers on social media
On his website, he cashes in on his famous photo, selling novelty dart boards, underpants, wrapping paper and mugs – all emblazoned with famous photo of his face
Indeed, the picture was so obviously silly that the school principal wouldn’t let it in the final cut of the yearbook.
But Craven and a school pal, Ian Davies, took a digital copy of the picture that would eventually secure his fame – though it would take six years for Davies to eventually share it with the world.
It made its way to t-shirts, stuffed animals and novelty items sold bu the likes of Wal-Mart and Hot Topic, while companies like Volkswagen, and others as far away as Chile and Poland paid up to use his pictures in their ad campaigns.
The deals, which he negotiated himself, made him an estimated $20,000, and Craven tried to capitalize on his internet kudos even further by filming videos about his character.
He even traveled to Los Angeles for a ‘date’ with another meme character – Laina Morris, or Overly Attached Girlfriend. While the two didn’t fall in love, the resulting video was watched more than 2million times.
Kyle now has almost 10,000 followers on social media, and has repeatedly met up with other meme stars. On his website, he sells novelty dart boards, underpants, wrapping paper and mugs – all emblazoned with his face.
6. Popeyes Meme Kid
The ‘Popeyes meme kid’ from a decade ago is now a sports star – and has an endorsement deal from the very establishment he went viral in.
Dieunerst Collin is a 6-foot-1, 330-pound offensive lineman at the University of Texas.
But in 2013, he was just a nine-year-old kid who delivered a memorable side-eye to the camera as the recorder mistook him for the internet sensation Lil Terrio.
The video went viral on now-defunct app Vine but the picture of the moment still lives on today.
He has since become a is profiting off his previous fame as Popeyes have signed him to an NIL deal.
The ‘Popeyes meme kid’ went viral a decade ago when he delivered a memorable side-eye to the camera as the recorder mistook him for the internet sensation Lil Terrio
Dieunerst Collin is a 6-foot-1, 330-pound offensive lineman at the University of Texas with an endorsement deal from the very establishment he went viral in
Now 20, he has more than 71,000 followers on social media and proudly posts about both his current American Football stardom and his childhood memes
Collin lobbied on behalf of the deal for himself, tagging Popeyes and encouraging others to do so too. A billboard from the company is emblazoned with the moniker: ‘from memes to dreams’.
Now 20, he has more than 71,000 followers on social media and proudly posts about both his current American Football stardom and his childhood memes.
Speaking with Mirror Sport in 2023, he revealed that he was brutally bullied for his famous moment.
Collin said: ‘At the time, I was obviously just a kid and it really did affect me negatively. I was at the point where I never wanted to walk outside ever again. So it was tough for a few years (being bullied).’
He added: ‘I used to shy away from the meme thing, I used to hate when people bring it up, I didn’t know how to deal with my anger. Even now, when people ask me about it, I am able to communicate about it and go about my day.’
