The man behind the 'disappointed cricket fan' meme explains what it's like becoming one
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All Sarim Akhtar wanted to do was watch his beloved Pakistan play cricket, but he ended up accidentally becoming one of the most popular memes on the internet.
You know this one, it's the bald guy standing with his hands on his hips with the perfect look of disappointment written across his face.
It's useful for so many things because you can get disappointed in pretty much any walk of life, but the real guy was stunned to discover he'd become an internet sensation.
His early warning to his newfound fame came pretty much the moment he sat back down in his seat as his friends started calling to say they'd seen him, and within five minutes they were sending his memes.
Then people sitting around him started noticing that they were in the presence of a new internet celebrity and it took off from there.
Sarim has absolutely loved becoming a meme and all of the creative things people have done with his likeness since he shot to viral fame.
He said: "Living through it was tremendous, an out of body experience. I had heard about people becoming memes but going through it, living through it, was simply jaw dropping.
"The best reaction was from my parents, still to date they want to want to see all the interviews that I've done, every article that has been written about me, it gets them excited."
We'd just like to take this moment to say hi to Sarim's mum and dad, we really love your son's meme.
He got so popular that someone even asked him for permission to put his picture on a credit card as their bank wouldn't let them use it without Sarim's say-so.
Plenty of other people who ended up becoming memes have had similar stories.
The man behind 'Hide The Pain Harold' was annoyed when he first discovered he'd gone viral for a stock photo and his wife absolutely hated her husband's newfound fame, especially as some people thought he wasn't even real.
However, the very real Arató András learned to take ownership of his own meme by setting up his own page and his wife started coming around to his fame once it got him some work.
He got a role in an advert for a car dealer and became the face of a mental health awareness campaign in his native Hungary.
Meanwhile, the guy from the 'holding in fart in class' meme says he gets noticed all the time even as he's all grown up, while the woman from the 'girlsplaining' meme said she was able to see the funny side of internet fame.
Featured Image Credit: @msarimakhtar/Twitter
Topics: Viral
