The Internet’s “blinking man” is trading miles of fame for his meme this weekend.
Drew Scanlon will run 102 miles through the San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday to raise funds for multiple sclerosis research.
Scanlon said his nearly 10 years of cycling missions raised over $250,000 for the illness, inspired by a friend influenced by MS.
Despite having one of the most famous faces on the planet, Scanlon said he is often not recognized on the streets. His fame comes from something inherently human, not from what he posts or says online. The meme was born around his time in the video game website’s major bomb. Scanlon’s reaction – a simple blink – was captured when a colleague joked during the live stream.
“I don’t know who cut it out, when, when, when, when,” Scanlon told NBC News in a phone interview Friday.
“It was about the four-year gap between when the video actually aired and when the () meme took off.”
To say that a meme has “take-off” might be an understatement. One version of Scanlon’s blinking face has been over 6 billion times on Giphy alone, smashed into chat rooms, text messages and social media posts. “I know that when something like this happens, it can be a bit confusing,” he says.
On the road, Scanlon is more known for MS as “the man who raises money for all that memes”;
He and his charity’s bicycle group Big El West focus on raising awareness and funding for neurological diseases that affect 2.8 million people worldwide. According to the National Institutes of Health, women are twice as likely to be male, causing vision problems, weakness and difficulty walking.
“It’s great to find this outlet, and it’s great to see it continues to resonate with people,” Scanlon said.
