The monetization of the video was also (by current standards) primitive: He appeared in a Microsoft ad. ItвЂ™s more of the Tosh.0 version of the internet where there are funny things to be found than the Distracted Boyfriend or Pepe the frog version where there are existing memes that we make our own meaning out of. But вЂњDouble RainbowвЂќ is just a funny video вЂ“ you watch it once, you laugh, and thatвЂ™s it. The things we think of as memes now are mostly defined by being iterative: a photo you can write new captions over and over ad nauseum and can mean a million different things.

In many ways, even though it happened in 2010, it resembled the memes of the 2000s more: It went viral after Jimmy KimmelвЂ™s show account tweeted it, and it spread over email and Gchat from person to person. ItвЂ™s a viral video, sure, and it was one of the first truly huge and popular ones. What makes Paul VasquezвЂ™s effusive awe at seeing a double rainbow distinctly from 2010 as opposed to 2019 is how itвЂ™s barely what weвЂ™d call a вЂњmemeвЂќ now. In a 2017 video, he said that his managers at the time had stolen $30,000 from him, and since then heвЂ™s abandoned his public social media accounts. He was homeschooled and joined the 2015 DigiTour, a tour for social media stars, mainly Vine stars at the time. Alex LaBeouf, who went by Alex Lee as a stage name, eventually dropped out of high school because he had missed so many days to fly to Los Angeles for appearances on talk shows. But the woman who made the tweet (whose Twitter account is now suspended) said she had never heard of the marketing company, and that she just randomly found the photo on Tumblr and tweeted it out, and it seems that the marketing company was trying to claim stolen viral valor.Д«ut the ending wasnвЂ™t so great for the guy at the center of it. An internet marketing company stepped forward, claiming that it had gotten the original girl to tweet the photo of Alex as a viral marketing stunt, and seeded the meme with inorganic retweets and promotion. There was some legitimate confusion over how and why AlexвЂ™s photo blew up. The tweet went viral, and people fell in love with this mysterious Alex from Target, creating memes and tributes in his image, leading anyone over the age of 23 to wonder: What the fuck is happening here? Her tweet was simply, вЂњYOOOOOOOO,вЂќ signaling that, well, this teen boy was cute. In November 2014, a young woman tweeted a photo of a teenage checkout clerk at Target with Alex on the nametag. Dodson went on to a strange post-virality career, with a reality show that never got off the ground, celebrity boxing matches, controversial statements about being gay, and a Trump endorsement. At the time, some people pointed out that turning a video of poor black man expressing anguish over the attempted sexual assault of his sister was problematic. вЂњBed Intruder SongвЂќ captured two powerful vectors that would come to define the rest of the decade: a normal person being propelled to some sort of viral fame, and a critical backlash over the exploitative race, gender, and class dynamics. In July 2010, Antoine Dodson appeared on the local news in Alabama after a home invader attempted to assault his sister, saying: вЂњHeвЂ™s climbinвЂ™ in your windows, heвЂ™s snatchinвЂ™ your people upвЂ¦ So yвЂ™all need to hide your kids, hide your wife.вЂќ The news clip went viral, and a few days later, DodsonвЂ™s words were remixed into the auto-tuned вЂњBed Intruder Song,вЂќ which made it onto the Billboard 100 charts and become the most-viewed YouTube video of 2010.

Get it done meme