5 Eyebrow-Arching Epilogues To The Most Famous Photos Ever

We hope the community had a bin Laden pinata she could volunteer at.

Then in 2014, her doctor informed her she had stomach cancer. Clearly, she had upset a witch of some sort. No, wait. Remember that dust from earlier? There's a good possibility that it was actually a carcinogenic cocktail -- one that screwed hundreds of people who had already experienced quite enough misery.

At least it gave her an excuse to buy a kickass wig.

By November 2014, Borders had racked up $190,000 in medical bills, and was unable to afford her medications. See, while some cancers are covered under the Sept. 11 compensation fund, it was unclear whether her illness was one of them. Without help, she succumbed to the disease in 2015.

Uh ... we mean, she flew away on a rainbow! Y-yeah. That's how it went down. Now she's best friends with a cloud. They sing songs. Everything is fine.

But if we don't save the koalas, what are we fighting for, anyway?

Sure, Tree got positive attention too. He was honored in a multitude of ways, and even received a bronze sculpture of the photo from his hometown. However, humanity being reliably, awfully human, the statue was promptly vandalized, as was Tree's car. The stress of the constant negative attention turned Tree into an anxious wreck. He even quit his job when his boss started to give him crap about his "koala man" status.

He is presumably at home right now, grimly sewing a koala suit, plotting his revenge.

And six months later, Sam the koala flew away on a rainbow.

However, ecstatic as Mendonsa was, Friedman had a lot more riding on the end of the war. She originally hailed from Austria, and back in 1938, she took her two younger sisters and fled the rapidly escalating high-octane Nazi bullshittery to the United States. Her parents were supposed to follow, but they never got the chance. The person really, truly celebrating the end of the war up there is the one bent painfully backwards, and wearing heels.

She named all her grandchildren "Fuck you, Hitler."

Also, in case you were wondering: No, she never held any ill will toward her mysterious kisser. After their identities were revealed in the 1980s, Friedman and Mendonsa reconnected, became friends, and exchanged Christmas cards for years. Presumably their favorite holiday song is "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

Meanwhile, Mendonsa remains happily married to the woman he was on a date with the day of the kiss.

She happened to be standing next to Miller when the soldiers started shooting, and a photography major happened to capture her reaction to the batshit insane situation. If you had to Google the phrase "being in the wrong place at the wrong time," this is the photo you should get.

Suddenly, Cleveland seemed only the second-worst place to be in Ohio.

And things weren't about to get better for Vecchio. She was eventually returned to her family, who promptly proceeded to capitalize on her fame by selling T-shirts with her photo on it. When she went back to school, many wanted her to act as a spokesperson for student unrest, despite the fact that she had little understanding of politics -- because she continued to be a 14-year-old. She didn't stop that for like, a whole year. And right when she thought things couldn't get any worse, she became a target for thousands of hate letters, thanks to the hawkish governor of Florida, who decided to label her a communist plant and accuse her of being responsible for the deaths of the students at the protest.

Again, 14.

"I'll speak on it if you want, but seriously, guys. What the fuck."

Her fame and anti-authoritarian status caused her trouble with the law several times, and she refers to it as "life-destroying."

She ... also got to ride away on a rainbow!

He then quickly changed into a cocktail dress and confused the soldier with a smooch.

Right after the protest, Harris moved to San Francisco, changed his name to Hibiscus, and started a psychedelic drag theater troupe called The Coquettes. That was simply what was done in San Francisco in the 1960s. It was practically mandatory.

The Cockettes featured actors high on LSD wearing bedazzled costumes and singing show tunes, and performances usually ended with most of the cast naked on stage. Inevitably, the shows started gaining a cult following, and Hibiscus' fame grew.

This wasn't mandatory in San Francisco, but it was certainly encouraged.

He eventually brought his act to New York, where he was the darling of Manhattan's artist circles. He dated Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon was known to jump onstage to sprinkle glitter on him, and the Osmonds used his shows as inspiration for their TV skits. Truman Capote called his show "the only true theater."

Yes, that friendly kid in the bitchin' cable-knit went on to do all that.

And we weren't joking about tossing on that dress.

And then, in 1982, Hibiscus became one of the first victims of a new illness called GRID, aka Gay-Related Immunodeficiency. That's what we called AIDS before we had any sort of clue, both scientifically and culturally. He passed away at 33.

And god damn it all, he better fly away on a rainbow at the end of this entry.

Yep, there he goes: majestic, dignified, pupils the size of dinner plates and now ... naked? Oh yeah, totally naked.

It's exactly how it should be.

Follow Alyssa on Twitter for significantly less exciting but also less depressing photos. Blow your mind further by checking out Markos' Twitter. Luke Miller used to keep America's skies safe as an air traffic controller, but now he writes fart jokes for Cracked.

For more words behind the photos, check out 5 Shocking Facts That Will Change How You View Famous Photos and 24 Photos Everyone Knows With Insane Backstories No One Does.

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