Graham
About
Graham is a sculpture of a deformed-looking human designed to survive car crashes, who was unveiled by the Australian Transport Accident Commission in late July 2016. After several photographs of the character circulated online, many internet users created humorous photoshops and image macros mocking the the sculpture's bizarre and disturbing features.
Origin
In 2016, artist Patricia Piccinini,[9] known for making sculptures of human-animal hybrids, was commissioned by the Australian Transport Accident Commission (TAC) to create a sculpture depicting a human who was built to survive a car crash. On July 18th, the TACVictoria YouTube channel uploaded a video titled "You’ve never met anyone like Graham," featuring footage of a deformed-looking human sculpture made of fiberglass, silicone and human hair (shown below).
On July 21st, the website MeetGraham[1] was launched, featuring an interactive web application providing a 360-degree view of the sculpture (shown below). Additionally, the sculpture was placed on exhibit at the State Library of Victoria, where it will be available for viewing until August 8th.
Spread
On July 21st, 2016, pictures of Graham reached the front page of the /r/WTF,[10] /r/creepy[12] and /r/internetisbeautiful[11] subreddits. The same day, The Daily Mail tweeted[14] a link to their article[15] about the sculpture (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Twitter user @KeklePop posted a photograph of Graham with the caption "Welcome home son" (shown below, right). Within one week, the tweets gathered upwards of 18,000 and 1,400 likes respectively.
Also on July 21st, BuzzFeed[16] published an article about the online reaction to the sculpture titled "People Are Freaking Out Over This Disturbing Road Safety Sculpture." The following day, Cheezburger[13] posted a roundup of Internet reactions to the Graham sculpture. Also on July 22nd, 2016, The Young Turks YouTube channel uploaded a video in which co-hosts Brett Erlich, Grace Baldridge and Hasan Piker discuss the Graham images (shown below).
On July 25th, Smosh[3] posted a listicle titled "22 Hilarious Reaction to 'Graham' the Car Crash Survivor." The following day, Tumblr user krudman[17] posted two fan illustrations of the Graham sculpture, accumulating more than 4,900 notes within 24 hours (shown below, middle, right).
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Meet Graham – meetgraham.com.au
[2] YouTube – TAC's interactive sculpture by artist Patricia Piccinini – Meet Graham, TAC 2016
[3] Smosh.com – 22 Hilarious Reactions to 'Graham' the Car Crash Survivor
[4] Tumblr – Sixpenceee
[5] Fortune.com – Here's the Only Human Designed to Survive a Car Crash'
[6] CNN.com – Meet Graham, a 'human' designed to survive a car crash
[7] ABCNews.com – Meet Graham, Who Survives Car Crashes So Others Can Live
[8] Huffingtonpost.com – Meet Graham -- The Superhuman Evolved To Survive Car Accidents
[8] LiveScience.com – Bizarre-Looking 'Graham' More Likely Than You to Survive Car Collision
[9] Wikipedia – Patricia Piccinini
[10] Reddit – An artists interpretation of how the human body would have to evolve
[11] Reddit – Meet Graham
[12] Reddit – Meet Graham
[13] Cheezburger – The Internet Reacts to Graham, an Indestructible Humanoid Designed to Survive Car Crashes
[14] Twitter – @MailOnline
[15] The Daily Mail – How the human body would have to be built to survive a catastrophic car crash
[16] BuzzFeed – People Are Freaking Out Over This Disturbing Road Safety Sculpture
Top Comments
Snickerway
Jul 27, 2016 at 10:32PM EDT in reply to
Fresh Dippy
Jul 29, 2016 at 11:55AM EDT