Bad Luck Brian

2012

Date: 23 January 2012 · Place: Reddit r/AdviceAnimals, photo taken in Columbus, Ohio · Figures: Kyle Craven, photo subject · Ian Davies, photographer and Craven's friend · Tags: Advice Animal, Yearbook Photo 01. A Deliberately Disastrous Yearbook Photo In 2006 Kyle Craven, then a high school freshman in Columbus, Ohio, sits for his yearbook portrait in a powder-blue sweater vest, smiling broadly with eyes squinted. He retook the photo because the original was, by his account, deliberately ridiculous. The photographer is his friend Ian Davies. On 23 January 2012 Davies posts the photo to Reddit r/AdviceAnimals captioned Takes a driver's test, gets first DUI. The character is named Bad Luck Brian. 02. The Monetization Craven and Davies pursue licensing actively. The pair earn a reported low-six-figure sum from t-shirts, a Mountain Dew commercial, and image-licensing royalties between 2012 and 2015. Bad Luck Brian is the last canonical advice-animal of the genre's peak and the first whose subject and photographer actively built a business around the meme from week one. Sources • KnowYourMeme, 'Bad Luck Brian' • Reddit r/AdviceAnimals, original post by hejdamn (23 January 2012) • Bloomberg, 'Bad Luck Brian Is a Six-Figure Business' (24 February 2015)