My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Like a lot of kids I fully expected to become famous when I got older.

I was hoping to be a popular comedian, or actor, or director, or writer... but I would have settled for a newspaper headline about me saving a bunch of orphans from a blazing inferno, or a network news broadcast featuring my muscular frame jumping in front of a speeding train to rescue a litter of kittens.

Nope, I became famous for over an hour one night, even longer than the proverbial "15 minutes", due to a silly Internet post I put on Reddit. Here's the story:

Last year, over the Christmas break, I saw the newest Star Wars movie with Michael Quiggle, my daughter's fiancé. So this year I was excited to see Rogue One with him while we were all visiting Melanie's family in Casper, Wyoming, the town where I grew up. A day or two before we left Paris I suddenly thought, "Wow, I saw the original Star Wars film in Casper. How cool would it be if I could see the new one in the same theater???"

As luck would have it, not only was the America theater still around, it WAS showing the new Star Wars movie. We bought our tickets and as we were leaving the theater I asked Autumn to take a picture of me standing in front of the marquee:

This is me in front of the America Theater in Casper, WY. This is the picture I posted on Reddit.

I posted the picture to Facebook and then, as kind of an afterthought, I submitted it to Reddit. Now, if you are not familiar with Reddit, it's known officially as a "social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website". Basically, it's just a giant message board where users have the ability to upvote or downvote posts. The site is home to over 234 million "redditors" who submit over 200,000 messages per day. A fraction of these get enough votes to make it to the top ten or fifteen pages of the site. (I've never had a post get anywhere near that.)

A few hours after my update I jumped online and was surprised to see there were already 60 replies to my message, including one where a guy "found" a picture of me in front of the theater back in 1975:

How do you like my 'fro? (After a botched perm in High School my hair really did look like that.)

The fact that somebody took the time to doctor my photo in Photoshop really tickled me, so I told my friends about it on Facebook. I swear it was only a few minutes later when I saw this:

I laughed when I saw this... There's NO WAY I was the top post on the front page. 

Shaking my head with amusement I loaded Reddit and looked for my post. I couldn't find it anywhere and I thought to myself, "Nice one, Tamara... Number one on Reddit... Riiiiiight."

I hit Refresh one more time and suddenly there it was. I was not only on the front page, I was the top post on the entire site! For some crazy reason I was even ranked higher than the messages about Carrie Fisher's heart attack, which was just plain wrong...

With eyes like saucers I kept hitting refresh and my post stayed at number one for over an hour, racking up 51,000 upvotes (probably 500,000+ total views) and inspiring more than 850 comments. I still have no idea why any of this happened, and I think it confounded others too, many of whom accused me of being a shill for the film company.

I read through most of the comments and before everything gets archived and disappears forever I wanted to capture a few of my favorites: (many are not kind):

"Can someone please explain what I am looking at? Is this person famous? Or is this really just a picture of a dude pointing at a theater?" 

"Thanks for pointing at the theatre, I couldn't tell what building it was that you saw the movie in." 

"The circle is now complete."  

"This is the America theater in Casper WY. My family owns it. It remains one of the nicest theaters in Wyoming. Thank you for sharing!"

"Step 1: Be Old. Step 2: Find an old theater with Rogue One playing. Step 3: Buy a Kodak EasyShare because how in the f*** do you get these photos off this god damned iphone wtf is iTunes I need to call my grandson. Step 4: Sweet sweet Upvotes." 

"The comment to karma ratio makes me think this is an advertisement upvoted by bots. There is also no original picture or proof, just a story in the title."

"Who the f*** is dressing you?"

"You sir, are a f***ing legend and yes I'm drunk as Cooter Brown." 

"Wow!!! that was really nice of them to let a homeless guy in. Faith in humanity restored!!!"

"This is my first Reddit account and my first comment. I think this post is really cool and I really appreciating you sharing this moment of beautiful nostalgia with all of us." 

"Your face is so far from the ground." 

"So, what, 40 years and zero life? You're perfect for Reddit. Now maybe tell me something you just learned today that anyone with a brain has known since practically birth." 

"Sounds f**ing awesome you ugly ass grandpa." 

"Hey Clare if you're reading this f*** you!" 

"There's an old guy in your photo. Get rid of him." 

"WHY the f*** are posts like these making it to the front page?"

"This just makes me happy."

"What a special snowflake."

"Wyoming on the front page! Not for the Tetons, weather, or electoral college representation. It is a non-denominational rare random occurrence of good fortune (otherwise known as a Christmas miracle)."

"You're cute!"

"Damn OP you old af..."

"Heyyy, it's a picture of an old man standing in front of an old theater, thanks /r/pics" 

"DILF!"  

"Nerd! I mean, awesome. Me too." 

"No one cares you old j*zz bag."

"Damn, I dont think it's cool for baby boomers to be on Reddit. It's just weird."

"Did you return to your mother's basement and j*rk off while eating cheetos afterwards?"