Internet culture moves at an absurd speed, and memes that once felt unavoidable can vanish almost overnight. The formats that ruled group chats and early social feeds can end up buried until an algorithm decides to resurrect them. Lately, a wave of 2010s nostalgia has been doing exactly that, pulling old favorites back into people’s timelines. One of the biggest reminders is the eternally doomed grin of Bad Luck Brian.
At the start of the 2010s, Bad Luck Brian was everywhere, and the image needed almost no explanation. It was a seemingly normal school photo of an awkward teen with braces, a stiff smile, and the kind of expression that made every punchline land harder. The joke format was simple, with a setup that hinted at hope and a second line that destroyed it. A classic example captures the whole vibe in one hit, “Wins $1.9 million in the lottery, loses the ticket.”
The face behind the meme is Kyle Edward Craven, and the photo’s rise started with someone who actually knew him. His longtime friend from high school, Ian Davies, posted the yearbook picture to Reddit, basically tossing it into the internet’s fastest moving blender. In the photo, Craven is wearing a sweater vest that he later said he picked on purpose as a joke. The image had the perfect mix of sincerity and discomfort, which is exactly what meme formats love.
The first captioned version did not immediately conquer the web, even though it already had the seed of the idea. That early post included a joke about failing a driving test, and it barely made a dent. Later the same day, another Reddit user remixed the image with a harsher, funnier twist, and that version caught fire. From there, the template spread like a chain reaction, with thousands of people inventing new ways for Brian’s life to go wrong.
Once it broke out of Reddit, Bad Luck Brian quickly ended up on the big meme hubs of the era. It traveled across 9GAG and Tumblr, then into broader pop culture through BuzzFeed and Funny or Die. The captions worked because they felt like mini horror stories for everyday life, where the worst possible outcome always arrived on time. Another popular example leaned into dark travel irony, “Wins a cruise ticket, destination is Somalia.”
By roughly 2012 through 2014, Bad Luck Brian became one of the signature formats of the Advice Animals era. These were memes built on a consistent image template, with a two line structure that delivered a quick narrative twist. In that same ecosystem, other icons like Success Kid and Grumpy Cat were also dominating feeds. Looking back, it feels like a prehistoric internet, but at the time it was the core language of online humor.
Craven’s reaction to sudden fame was surprisingly calm, and he leaned into it without seeming overwhelmed by it. He took part in a Reddit Q and A, built social profiles tied to the character, and even ran a YouTube presence connected to the meme. More importantly, he treated the image like intellectual property and licensed it for shirts, products, and advertising. The better known collaborations mentioned include Volkswagen and McDonald’s, which shows how far a yearbook photo can travel when the internet decides it is iconic.
Years later, the meme economy shifted again, and Craven found a new way to monetize the same image during the NFT boom. In 2021, he sold the original Bad Luck Brian NFT for about $36,000. That move put him among the earlier meme figures who tried to turn viral fame into a direct digital sale. Whether people loved or hated NFTs, it signaled a new era where internet legends looked for ownership and revenue, not just attention.
Away from the meme, Craven kept building a fairly normal life, even while his face remained a punchline for millions. He graduated from Kent State University and eventually settled into a leadership role in his family’s construction company. He is now described as a vice president at that Ohio based business, which is a long way from being the poster boy for misfortune. In a strange way, the internet moved on so thoroughly that many people recognize the face but no longer know his name.
For anyone who missed that era, Bad Luck Brian is a perfect snapshot of how meme history works. Advice Animals were a major early template style, built for fast sharing on forums and social platforms where images loaded quickly and jokes had to land instantly. The name itself reflects the format, since it offered advice like a fortune cookie, except the punchline usually twisted into comedy or sarcasm. It also shows how online humor relies on recognizable archetypes, and how a single facial expression can become a symbol.
It is also a reminder that going viral does not automatically mean long term stability, even when a meme becomes legendary. Licensing, brand deals, and platform participation can help creators turn sudden attention into real income, but the cultural spotlight rarely stays in one place. NFTs were one recent attempt to create scarcity and ownership for digital culture, though the market has been volatile and heavily debated. Still, Bad Luck Brian remains one of the clearest examples of a meme character becoming a real world brand, alongside punchlines like “Finally gets picked first, for the Hunger Games.”
What other 2010s meme do you think deserves a comeback, and why, share your thoughts in the comments.
