Yotube

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About

Yotube is a nickname of a Facebook user who on March 2nd, 2015, set their profile picture to a photograph of a boy sitting on a couch and looking directly at the camera. Following the discovery of the profile by the online community, this and another photograph of the boy proceeded to get used in memes. Online, the boy is also known as Staring Kid, Irony Kid and "Got Your Nose" Kid. In June 2020, Turkish Facebook user Anıl Krid found the person in the meme, uploading additional photographs of him.

Origin

On March 2nd, 2015, Facebook user Yotube updated their profile picture to a photograph of a boy dressed in a blue shirt sitting on a couch, looking directly at the camera (shown below, left). The post gained over 3,200 likes in four years.^[1] On the same day, Yotube posted another photograph to the profile, this time of the boy showing a "Got Your Nose" hand gesture (also known as fig sign) to the camera (shown below, right).^[2]

Spread

The date of the profile going viral is estimated to be September 27th, 2017, with the exact reason for it gaining online notoriety currently unknown. Starting on September 27th, 2017, multiple Facebook users submitted comments under the profile picture update posts (examples from that period shown below, center and right).^[4]^[5] On September 28th, 2017, a screenshot of the profile supposedly responsible for its popularity was reposted to iFunny (shown below, left).^[3]

On September 28th, 2017, YouTube user Le bazar du Allard posted a humorous video using the image.^[6] The video gained over 412,700 views in two years.

The photograph of Yotube had no further use in memes until it was rediscovered in March 2019. On March 18th, 2019, Instagram profile Yotube was created and subsequently linked on the Yotube Facebook page.^[7] Starting on the same day, a number of reposts of the September 2017 meme were made on Instagram,^[8] iFunny^[9] and Reddit.^[10]

In the following weeks, ironic memes utilizing the photographs of Yotube gained a significant presence online, primarily on Instagram and iFunny. In many examples, the profile photo of Yotube has been used as a non-sequitur punchline.

June 2020 Photographs

On June 24th, 2020, Facebook^[11] user Anıl Krid found and contacted the boy in the photograph. He then uploaded^[12] a total of 24 childhood photograph of Yotube, without disclosing the boy's name. The post received over 3,400 reactions and 8,200 shares in one week (photographs shown below).