The Ridiculously Photogenic Guy/Zeddie Little meme is a photoshop meme of an attractive smiling man that went viral after Zeddie Little was photographed running in the 2012 Cooper River Bridge Run. The public found the man exceptionally handsome.
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On March 31st, 2012, Zeddie Little took place in the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, South Carolina where this photograph was taken of him. This photo, along with others of the run, were uploaded to Flickr and Facebook, where one friend of the photographer dubbed him "Ridiculously Photogenic Guy." Within an hour of being on Flickr, the photo had reached 300,000 views. On April 3rd, 2012, the photographer submitted the photo to the /r/pics subreddit with a post title of "My friend calls him 'Mr. Ridiculously Photogenic Guy'", where the post received over 40,000 up votes.
Soon after the post reached the front page of Reddit, a "facebomb" version was posted, where Zeddie's face was photoshopped on everyone's head in the image.
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The next day, Mashable, the tech news blog, published this photo with the title "New Meme Alert: 'Ridiculously Photogenic Guy'", with a photoshopped image of Tina Fey.
Other derivatives included "Ridiculously Photogenic Surgery Girl," "Ridiculously Photogenic Metal Head", "Ridiculously Photogenic Prisoner", "Ridiculously Photogenic Jiu-Jitsu Guy" and more. Zeddie was even invited on to Good Morning America to discuss the origin of the photograph and how he felt about all the attention he was receiving.
I think this meme became so popular because it is unexpected that someone would take a photogenic picture while jogging. In fact, most people would say that they look their worst when they are exercising because they are flushed and sweaty. This guy, however, doesn't look tired or gross, he looks out of place.
The popularity of this meme had a very short life as shown in Google Analytics:
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I think the reason for the very short span of popularity for the meme has a lot to do with the fact that it is hard to find the amusement or humor in the meme unless you saw the original photo. Sticking Zeddie's face on other images isn't as amusing if you've never seen his face before, because he is not a recognizable celebrity, though he did mention on a formspring thread that he had been recognized on the street before.
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/lightbox/year-in-review-2012-most-viral-photos-1354420512-slideshow/ridiculously-photogenic-guy-photo-1504873737.html
[2]http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ridiculously-photogenic-guy-zeddie-little
[3]http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ridiculously-photogenic-guy-zeddie-little
[4]http://www.google.com/trends/explore? q=ridiculously+photogenic+guy#q=%22zeddie+little%22&cmpt=q
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