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Overly Attached Girlfriend: A retrospective
It’sViral Market Crashweek on Mashable. Join us as we take stock of the viral economy and investigate how the internet morphed from a fun free-for-all to a bleak hellscape we just can’t quit.
It's been over six years since Laina Morris uploaded "JB Fanvideo" to YouTube.
The clip, which shows Morris performing a parody version of Justin Bieber's 2012 song "Boyfriend," was originally intended as an attempt to win an online contest. (Bieber, who was launching a new fragrance called "Girlfriend," had invited fans to submit their best riffs on his track.)
Morris didn't win the contest, but that's beside the point. No one remembers who won the contest. Instead, Redditor yeahhtoast posted a screenshot and a link to her video to Reddit, where it quickly blew up. "I posted the video the night of June 6th, 2012 and realized it was getting a lot of attention before I went to bed that night," Morris said in an interview. "I stayed up late with one of my roommates reading comments on YouTube and Reddit."
SEE ALSO: How one company reshaped — and kind of ruined — the viral video landscapeThus, a meme was born, one that you're almost certainly familiar with: Overly Attached Girlfriend.
The Overly Attached Girlfriend character is a stereotypically clingy girl, obsessed with knowing what her boyfriend (at least, her perceived boyfriend) is up to. Morris's lyrics -- "If I was your girlfriend / I wouldn't let you leave / without a small recording device / taped under your sleeve" -- are hyperbolic and goofy, but it's her enormous, I'm-watching-you eyes that catapulted the video to internet fame.
CARD ID: 375368, CARD TYPE: Imgur
Even today, Morris's face is instantly recognizable to anyone who's spent time online. And people still approach her in public occasionally.
People still approach her in public occasionally.
"It definitely happened a lot more in the beginning, but it does still happen every now and then," Morris said. In fact, she explained, "a very sweet couple just came over and offered to buy my coffee and asked for a picture."
SEE ALSO: Remembering Advice Animals, one of the internet's first viral memesOverly Attached Girlfriend is the perfect emblem of the 2012 internet landscape, where parody videos and zany personae reigned supreme. Luckily, that online environment dovetailed perfectly with Laina's interests: parodying songs and creating characters.
Add a catchy, already-famous pop song, a strong visual, and a third-party memeification, and it's easy to see why Morris went viral. After all, we were all still enjoying the fun version of the internet.
But would Overly Attached Girlfriend go viral today? Probably not. For one thing, the internet has largely moved past both image macros and larger-than-life, Ermergerd-era personalities -- trends to which the OAG meme can attribute much of its success. YouTube is more "ethical panic zone" than "fun and democratic playground" these days. And the slightly problematic OAG character -- that of a woman hysterically obsessed with a man -- would probably not make it past the 2018 Twitter gates. Nor should it.
"I just feel like the internet is a different place today than it was six years ago."
"I've thought about [whether it would go viral again] before," Morris said, "and if I had to guess, I don't think it would. I just feel like the internet is a different place today than it was six years ago."
She does, however, appear admirably chill about her brush with viral fame. Despite a successful YouTube channel, numerous television appearances, and a host of fans who love allher work, Morris is still known primarily for being the Overly Attached Girlfriend. And she doesn't mind at all.
"I think OAG will probably always be what I'm known for best, and I'm totally OK with that," she said.
Hey, free coffee.
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