Blinking White Guy

Examples

Kid: I'm 5 / Kid: I was born in 2019

Born in 2019

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Credit & details

Kid: I'm 5 / Kid: I was born in 2019

Base footage: Giant Bomb, featuring Drew Scanlon.

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Three rows of Drew Scanlon reaction faces.

Middle school crush

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Credit & details

Me in middle school looking at my crush / My crush: / Me:

Base footage: Giant Bomb, featuring Drew Scanlon.

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FIRST GUY TO RIDE A ROLLER COASTER WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE:

First roller coaster

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Credit & details

FIRST GUY TO RIDE A ROLLER COASTER WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE:

Base footage: Giant Bomb, featuring Drew Scanlon.

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The first guy to ever get glasses must have been like

First glasses

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Credit & details

The first guy to ever get glasses must have been like

Base footage: Giant Bomb, featuring Drew Scanlon.

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About & sources

Drew Scanlon’s double take conveys bafflement and disbelief.

Date

Giant Bomb footage December 6, 2013; known reaction use in 2015; Twitter surge February 2017.

History

Drew Scanlon recalled reacting to Jeff Gerstmann’s double entendre while playing Starbound on Giant Bomb’s Unprofessional Fridays in December 2013. Fans made GIFs of the staff; this one reached people outside that community in 2017. He identified @eskbl’s February 5 biology-class tweet as the first example of the familiar caption format he saw, not necessarily its first use. Multi-panel “First Guy To” remixes followed in 2019. Scanlon told the Associated Press in 2021 that watching celebrities use his face was fun but overwhelming: he could not control who used it or how. In a Radio 1 interview reported by Metro, he stressed that memes are real people, not anonymous characters. He had taken part in Bike MS since 2016, but first used the meme to fundraise in 2019. Two close friends and members of their families live with MS; the National Multiple Sclerosis Society supports research and services for people affected. His appeals turned a reaction GIF’s recognition into support for that work.

Associated Press · Drew Scanlon interview (2021)
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