Scumbag Steve

2011

Date: January 2011 · Place: Reddit r/AdviceAnimals, photo taken Boston, Massachusetts · Figures: Blake Boston, photo subject · Suzanne Boston, photographer and mother · Tags: Advice Animal, Backwards Cap 01. A 2006 Photo Of A Massachusetts Teenager Suzanne Boston photographs her son Blake, then a teenager, in 2006 in their Massachusetts home. Blake wears an oversized white tank top, gold chain, and a sideways flat-brim cap. The photo is used as cover art for Blake's rap project Beantown Mafia. On 5 January 2011 the photo, isolated and superimposed on a lime-green background, appears on Reddit captioned with examples of egregious bad-friend behavior. The character is named Scumbag Steve. 02. The Hat As Modifier The flat-brim cap is later extracted and superimposed on other faces (politicians, athletes, fictional characters) to mark them as scumbags in context. The cap becomes one of the first detachable modifier-objects in meme grammar. Blake Boston speaks publicly about the meme, releasing a response track and discussing the persistent association in interviews. He continues to be recognized by the photograph nearly two decades later. Sources • KnowYourMeme, 'Scumbag Steve' • Reddit r/AdviceAnimals, original post (5 January 2011) • Vice, 'I Am Scumbag Steve' (16 May 2014)