6 People Who Had No Clue Their Faces Were World-Famous
Becoming accidentally famous must be an unpleasantly surreal experience. Rebecca Black is the most cited example of the phenomenon these days (as though she was just dancing down the street one day and accidentally passed through a terrible music video) but she's far from the most mind blowing example.
For instance, imagine driving through the streets of, say, Beijing, and suddenly seeing your face on a billboard for instant noodles. Imagine you then find out your face is the Chinese equivalent of the Gerber's Baby, and has been for decades, and you never had a clue. This apparently happens all the time.
#6.
We Can Do It! With Your Face!!!
Via Wikipedia
You've almost certainly seen the famous World War II propaganda icon "Rosie the Riveter."
What started as a simple motivational poster for the millions of women working in factories while their husbands were away fighting became one of the most iconic symbols of feminism and equality in the workplace. It's one of the most well known American cultural images of all time, up there with the raising of the flag over Iwo Jima and the drawing of Uncle Sam.
In 1984, while flipping through a copy of Modern Maturity, 59-year-old Geraldine Doyle spotted an article about the inspiration behind the Rosie the Riveter character: a photo of a 17-year-old girl working in a factory in 1942. Her name? Geraldine Doyle.
Via familytreemagazine
"Geraldine the Metal Presser," doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well.
Doyle, incredibly, had no idea of her connection to Rosie the Riveter. In fact, she didn't even know about the original inspirational photo, which given her posture, lends an unsettling peeping-Tom vibe to the whole thing. At the time, she'd just graduated high school and, like many other women, had taken a job in a factory in order to support the war effort. American Broach & Machine Co. had her on a metal press in no time at all, probably after a vigorous and thorough safety-training program that only that decade could deliver.
Via Wikipedia
"Wearing dresses around whirring, metal crushing machinery? Why, that's almost as dangerous as letting women wear pants!" - The 1940s
Fearing an injury that could impact her ability to play the cello, Doyle quit after only two weeks on the job. She endured the potential hand crushing long enough for a photographer to snap the picture without her noticing. Someone who did notice, however, was J. Howard Miller, an artist commissioned by the government to draw up some motivating pieces of art.
He kept Doyle's pretty face and red bandanna, but gave her slender build a shot of super-heroine sized muscles. Rosie, though not named as such right away, was born, and went on to inspire countless women.
Doyle told the Lansing (Michigan) State Journal, in the understatement of the century, "You're not supposed to have too much pride, but I can't help have some in that poster. It's just sad I didn't know it was me sooner."
Via paduanjawa
"So, I'm as well known as Mickey Mouse? Yeah, that might have been good to know."
#5.
Taster's Unfair Choice
In 2002, Russell Christoff, a kindergarten teacher, coasted through the grocery store just like any regular shopper looking for Bloody Mary mix. Coffee wasn't on his list, but, to his astonishment, he noticed that he was on the coffee.
Yeah, that's Russell Christoff smelling up a bunch of sweet coffee heat, courtesy of Nestle. And he didn't know how it got there. Also, he didn't even like Taster's Choice. But his coffee clone seemed to love it deeply ...
Via SFGate
Modern day Christoff appears much less likely to be whispering, "Oooooh coffee, it is going to be so fine when I make love to you."
Christoff had knowingly modeled for a Taster's Choice ad in Canada back in 1986 that, as far as he knew, never got used -- he had been paid $250 for the session and sent on his way. Not being good enough for Canada isn't the sort of thing you want to dwell on in a world with so many tall buildings with roof access, so Christoff pretty much forgot about it and went on with his life.
Unbeknownst to him, a Nestle employee, looking specifically for an image to embody Taster's Choice, ended up stumbling across the photo again. Naturally, Nestle called up Christoff and asked if they could use the photo in a new worldwide ad campaign. And of course, we're kidding. This was Nestle, a company famous for being somewhat unscrupulous.
"A phone call? To a customer? How quaint. Send him a cookie."
Over the years, Christoff's face would be plastered on coffee labels in about two dozen countries (including several Latin ones, for which they darkened his skin and added sideburns to the picture for some reason) and he had no idea. He sued and won $15.6 million, which he lost on appeal. He's back in court now, still fighting Nestle over the use of his face. Nestle, on the other hand, tried to settle things outside of court for the sum of $100,000. Christoff countered with the sum of $8.5 million. Nestle respectfully declined before chuckling softly into a handkerchief and leaving the bargaining table to add a new warning label to their jars.
Via USA Today
"Warning: May contain images of people who can't keep their damn mouths shut!"
#4.
The Stolen Scream
Via fstoppers
No matter where you live, there is a pretty good chance that at some point in the last couple years you have seen this image. It's become the face of revolution in half a dozen countries, a Che-like icon.
The young man who apparently hates the sky can be found on T-shirts, in promotional materials for rock bands and as graffiti all over the world. And that was all before the guy in the photo had the slightest idea. It was just a picture of his face he had stuck on his Flickr account.
Via fstoppers
This Flickr account, if you want to see the originals. Try to restrain yourself from sticking them on a T-shirt.
That guy was Noam Galai, an Israeli living in New York City who took up photography as a hobby. One day he thought about how scary people look when they yawn and decided to take a self-portrait with his mouth wide open as if screaming. Then he promptly forgot about it.
A few years later, a co-worker noticed T-shirt sellers around the city doing a brisk business shilling Galai's face to tourists, and asked him why he hadn't told her he had sold the rights to his face, at which point Galai probably asked her which Pink Floyd song that was from because he hadn't sold the rights to anything.
By this point it wasn't just a local thing -- Galai searched for the image online and found more than 50 examples from places as far flung as Chile, Canada and Germany. Eventually he showed up on this magazine cover:
Via screameverywhere
Not bad for the visual equivalent of "meh."
You might notice the headline says "The Face of Democracy." That's because the image of a random young man scream-yawning had become a rallying image for political movements in places like Honduras, Bhutan and China. Something about the power of this image spoke not only to Manhattan teens trying to annoy their parents but to oppressed people around the world.
National Geographic, the parent company of Glimpse magazine, did actually pay Galai for the use of his image for their cover, marking the first and only time he's seen a dime. Instead of getting lawsuit-happy and attempting to sue everyone from small businesses to freedom fighters, though, he took the popularity of his stolen picture in stride and started a website where people can send in pictures of the image.
Galai isn't the first person to have his image used without his permission. In fact, if you've ever posted your photograph online, you might already be famous. Danielle Smith and her family became literally huge overseas after she posted their Christmas card photo on a few social networking sites and ... that's it. She didn't sell the photograph to a modeling agency. Just posted it online and forgot about it.
And that would have been the end of the story if she didn't happen to have a friend in Prague, who happened to be walking by a high-end grocery store that was displaying this life sized ad:
How many friends do you have in Prague? You might be the Eastern European equivalent of the Jordan jump man logo right now. You'd never know. And thanks to Facebook settings, it's only going to get weirder from here. Tomorrow it could easily be your sexy face staring back at you from a cheap T-shirt.
Oh.
It's kinda strange. Looking at two pictures, that one guy doesn't really look like Bin Laden. However, when you try to explain to yourself how he doesn't, you really don't have any good reasons.
ReplyDamn, this article is older than the Zeddie Little story.
ReplyHow did Sharbat's nose manage to change shape to become longer and thinner and pointier while the rest of her face put on weight?
ReplyIt's such a shame, really. These days she could have been the Miranda Kerr of Afghanistan.
As soon as i realized that Noam Galai guy was yawning i immediately had to yawn myself.
ReplyI think trying to sell something using my face would be its own punishment.
ReplyI agree. You are not a handsome woman.
People are not going to like this, but I'm gonna say it anyway: I'd totally have done the 1985 version of the Afghan girl.
ReplyYou think your life is hard? Just read Sharbat Gula's story.
ReplyThose veils are a crime to be hiding something as gorgeous as Sharbat's eyes from the world.
ReplyHer eyes WERE gorgeous...'til they went from furious to defeated. How sad.
Come now, don't you know the human body is disgusting and needs to be covered up to stop men's penis' exploding?
Now with sites like quickmeme, so many more people have become famous before they knew it
ReplyAs long as my face isn't selling something awkward? All good.
ReplyMy breath catches a bit every time I see the Afghan Girl's eyes.
Replyf**k Osama bin laden
ReplyI became less familiar with these pictures the further I read.
ReplyGeraldine Doyle was gorgeous.
ReplySharbat Gula, she deserves those million dollars the NG and those photographers produce out of her photo, at least she will use it to build up her community and get them out of poverty, not to enrich the riches that own natgeo or whatsoever.
Reply(and i'll definitely stop my natgeo subscription if i found out that they dont paid her a good much after that 'found' edition)
Stop saying natgeo.
I worked at my college library where a Chinese mother and little daughter would frequent. They were always REALLY loud and one day the little girl dropped her hot chocolate or whatnot on the floor and her mother was screaming at her in Chinese. It was really loud so I walked up to them said to calm down, I would clean it up, and then I added "Just cool it."
ReplyI knew people would often record these people on their phone because they were annoyingly hilarious, but maybe a year later my Chinese friend told me this video was famous on Chinese facebook. They dubbed everything in Chinese, but left "Just Cool It" in English, but spoken by the Chinese person doing the dubbing.
Then there were offshoots of the video, like an original person in a rage, and then me saying "Just Cool It" (in English, but someone else's voice) playing at the end as some sort of response. The video is not so good and my face doesn't show, but I remember this and no one else I know has those same purple and black plaid pants...
Why will you not link?!
I don't have Chinese facebook but next time I see my friend I'll download the video. I didn't really think it was noteworthy until I read this article! My mom and gdad have asked to see it because my gdad just moved to China and wanted to tell people that his granddaughter was "famous" ugh....
this happened to me, but on a smaller scale, back in 2nd grade, me and my class were playing in one of those multicolored parachutes in P.E. someone dug up a photo that showed me and five others in the class playing with it, and then captioned it with "like if this was your favorite thing to do in P.E." I found it on facebook, and, sure enough, it's me.
ReplyGod damned Communists.
ReplyGod damned Mongolians.
I swear to God, something just like this happened to a co-worker of mine. We both worked at a Blockbuster Video store in Canada, and this guy had a friend at the head office who said they were looking for a photo model for their newest ad campaign and asked my co-worker if he wanted to try out. He went to the head office and they took some photos of him, but gave off the impression that they probably wouldn't use him because he had spiky hair.
ReplyMany months later, the guy quit and left to go to college in the States when Blockbuster suddenly unveiled their new ad campaign with his face plastered all over it! They had solved the spiky hair problem by photoshopping a Blockbuster cap on his head! They never told my co-worker they were going to use him or paid him a cent for his likeness, and he only found out about it when a friend at his college discovered the photo and sent out a mass viral E-mail to everyone on campus! He probably wouldn't have minded the fame except that the photo made him look like a total dork.
Wow I'd hate to be known everywhere as Osama bin laden.but since Osama bin gotten it would be less bad but still a little scary.
Reply