Ridiculously Photogenic Guy

About

Ridiculously Photogenic Guy (RPG) is a photoshop meme and advice animal featuring a photo of a smiling man called Zeddie Little running in the 2012 Cooper River Bridge Run. The photo gained notoriety online after being posted to the social news website Reddit where users found the man to be exceptionally handsome.

Origin

On March 31st, 2012, computer programmer Will King took photographs of runners at the annual Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, South Carolina. King uploaded a set of almost 100 photos to Flickr [4] and Facebook, where one of his friends dubbed the man "Ridiculously Photogenic Guy." On April 3rd, 2012, King submitted the Flickr photo to the /r/pics [1] subreddit in a post titled "My friend calls him 'Mr Ridiculously Photogenic Guy'", which received over 40,000 upvotes. According to an interview with King published by Charleston City Paper [7] , King posted it to Flickr around lunchtime and within an hour, it had reached 300,000 views.

Spread

Shortly after the post hit the front page, a facebomb version of the photo was posted by Redditor chehov. [9] The following day, the tech news blog Mashable [3] published a post titled "New Meme Alert: 'Ridiculously Photogenic Guy'" which included an image of Zeddie Little's face photoshopped into a picture with comedian Tina Fey. Several hours later, MSN [6] posted about the series of advice animal memes inspired by the photo. As of April 4th, 2012, the Quickmeme [2] page has accumulated over 1,000 submissions and a Facebook page for "Mr Ridiculously Photogenic Guy" has received over 25 likes. The day after the image was posted to Reddit, the man in the photo was identified as 25-year-old New York resident Zeddie Little by the Charleston City Paper. [7] The article went on to claim that they were looking for Little in order to conduct an interview about his newfound Internet fame. On April 5th, The Daily Mail [16] reported that they spoke with Little’s father, who revealed that his son was in a committed relationship of five years and was seeking a job in the public relations industry in New York. In the following days, social media accounts purporting to be Zeddie Little were created including a "Zeddie Little" Facebook [15] page, and the @TheZeddieLittle [13] Twitter account. So I made a twitter to make it easier to talk to all of you! x — Zeddie Little (@TheZeddieLittle) April 7, 2012 On April 8th, the IBITimes [11] published an article quoting a tweet by Little's brother Grayson, which claimed that the @TheZeddieLittle Twitter account was inauthentic. The tweet has since been removed and the authenticity of the Twitter account remains in question. On April 9th, the IBITimes [12] posted a follow-up article featuring posts from a Zeddie Little Tumblr [14] blog which provided answers to questions asked by Little's fans. Several Tumblr users asked questions about Little’s dietary preferences, to which he responded that he liked carrots and blueberry pancakes. The blogger also claimed that Little had been recognized in public already and that he found out about the meme from a friend. The Ridiculously Photogenic Guy has been compared to the character Barney Stinson from the TV sitcom series How I Met Your Mother , in which he is always portrayed as a photogenic ladykiller unable to take a bad picture: On April 11th, 2012, Zeddie Little, who goes by the name Watkins, appeared with photographer Will King on the American breakfast television show Good Morning America . [19] In the interview, Little revealed that the photo was taken immediately after he waved to a friend and commented on his reaction to becoming an Internet meme. He also confirmed he would be running in the New York City marathon for the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health. [18] When asked about the appeal behind the meme, Little responded: "I really dont know, but I kinda feel honored to be part of a joke that's in good spirit because sometimes the Internet can be a little vicious or jokes can get bent the wrong way. But these are all kinda, for the most part, positive. It's funny that everybody is kinda taking like to it. It's, I guess, the most flattering way to get spread across the Internet."