NEWS
The New Hampshire
Friday, August 24, 2012
17
America’s freshman was a UNH freshman Star of viral ‘freshman meme’ recounts picture Editor’s note: The following excerpt was published in a February 2012 issue of The New Hampshire. By JOEL KOST ARTS EDITOR
The individual in the photo is Griffin Kiritsy, a 2012 graduate
from the University of New Hampshire. The picture of him that is now being used across the country was actually taken five years ago when he was a freshman. Kiritsy was interviewed and photographed for an article in Reader’s Digest about technology affecting people’s everyday lives. It was
featured in both the print and online version of the magazine. The magazine sent a photographer to Durham, who called Kiritsy an hour before they met up to let him know to wear a UNH shirt. Kiritsy, who hadn’t been in school for more than two months, didn’t own one. So he turned to his sister, a student at
the time. All she owned was a sweatshirt that read “UNH field hockey.” So in the picture, he placed his right arm over the words to try to prevent them from being seen. “I didn’t really want my picture taken,” Kiritsy said. “It was a Wednesday afternoon and there were literally hundreds of people walking around. It went in the magazine and I didn’t think anything of it. It basically just stayed there for
three years.” It wasn’t until last summer that Kiritsy’s image was discovered on the Internet and posted on quickmeme.com, a website used for posting memes. “My brother’s friend from California noticed it first,” Kiritsy said. “Last summer, it was on websites like Chive and Funny or Die. It was popular for a while, but then it died off for a semester.”