Overly Attached Girlfriend

2012

Date: 6 June 2012 · Place: Denton, Texas, YouTube · Figures: Laina Morris, performer · Tags: Performance Meme, Wide Eyes, YouTube 01. A Justin Bieber Contest Entry On 6 June 2012 Laina Morris, a twenty year old from Denton, Texas, uploads a fifty-eight second parody to a Justin Bieber contest in which fans rewrite his single Boyfriend. Morris stares unblinking into the camera and rewrites the lyrics from the perspective of an obsessive partner. The thumbnail freeze frame, eyes wide and unwavering, is extracted within days as an image macro for clingy and surveillant behavior. The character is named Overly Attached Girlfriend. 02. The First Performance-Origin Image Macro Where Bad Luck Brian and Scumbag Steve are accidental, Morris deliberately constructed her face for the camera. Overly Attached Girlfriend is the first major image macro whose subject knowingly performed the originating image. Morris built a YouTube channel of more than a million subscribers on the persona, then announced her retirement from content creation in 2018 to focus on her mental health. Her departure post is widely circulated as an early statement on creator burnout. Sources • KnowYourMeme, 'Overly Attached Girlfriend' • Laina Morris, 'JB Fanvideo' (YouTube, 6 June 2012) • The Verge, 'Overly Attached Girlfriend retires from the internet' (28 May 2018)