13 years ago, Avery Wagner became the unexpected star of the Awkard Party Reaction meme when the thumbnail of a popular Jimmy Tatro video titled "Don't Stop the Music" began circulating online as a relatable reaction image.

The meme, which is often used to convey feelings of disgust, has stayed relevant for over a decade thanks to Wagner's funny side-eyeing expression. It's inspired countless image macros and still circulates through TikTok comment sections today as a way of judging other people's content.

Now, Avery runs the social media management company The Wagner Perspective, while also posting her own content on TikTok. We spoke with Avery over a Zoom call to get a behind-the-meme look at what it was like to film the viral video, how the meme impacted her life, and more.

Q: Great to talk with you, Avery. So what's the story behind the Awkward Party Reaction meme?

A:The [Don't Stop the Music] video was filmed in 2012, which is insane. We're 13 years after the fact, and this thing is still circulating the internet.

A friend of mine in college, his name was Jimmy Tatro, he was a YouTube creator. He would film YouTube videos at his house with his writing buddy, Christian Pierce. They would write, direct, edit, film all these bits for YouTube. I was a film minor in college and Christian was a film major.

We became friends and they were always looking for extras to pop into different YouTube bits for them. He texted me one night and was like, 'Hey, we're going to film some YouTubes at our house, but we're having a party after. So just come by early and we'll get some stuff filmed and then we'll all hang out after.'

I showed up at their house at, I don't know, like 5:00. I was already three sheets to the wind. I had pre-gamed a little hard. The meme came from the YouTube thumbnail.

Q: Was this your first acting experience? Did you stay friends with Jimmy Tatro?

A:Yes. I grew up dancing and I was in like a couple of random musical theater things as a kid. I don't even know if you want to call that 'acting.' I guess it was. But this time, it was more of just me being drunk from a pregame and someone saying, 'Hey, just look like that was the weirdest thing you'd ever heard.' So yeah, I guess I got acting direction now that I think about it.

No, we're not buddies anymore. Everybody goes their different ways after college. Christian and I were the tighter ones, anyways. And Christian is still, I think, a TV writer.

Q: Jimmy Tatro has had a very successful career in film and television since then. What's it been like seeing that unfold?

A: Jimmy has gone on to have a huge career in Hollywood. He was in 21 Jump street. He starred in American Vandal on Netflix. He was in ABC's Home Economics. I followed his career really closely and I still follow him on socials, there's a couple outliers in that friend group that I kind of keep in touch with. But really it's just like, 'Oh, your stuff pops up on my socials and I see it from time to time.'

But they were a good group of people. We weren't super tight in college. He's a very talented, brilliant actor. They put all of their eggs into that [acting and writing] basket and we were like, 'where is this going to go?' But it obviously worked out.

Q: When the video came out, what were the reactions like from viewers?

A:When it came out the comment section was gnarly and they just ripped me to shreds. It literally was like, 'oh, you think hot girls go to U of A? Why don't you skip to minute 1:26 and look at the girl in the front right. She's so ugly.' So that really didn't do great things for my self esteem.

After it came out, I was like, 'I'm going to stay out of the limelight on this one.' There were a ton of comments about how I looked like Nicolas Cage with a wig on. That was really fun. That one kind of followed me around in college for a while. People would be like, 'Oh, what's up Nic Cage? How you doing?' People are just ruthless.

I was reading the comments for maybe two days and then I was like, 'You know what? We've got to be done with this. This is not healthy. This is not a good way to spend my time.' If people want to talk, let them talk. But then it probably took like maybe a year before the actual meme itself started circulating.

Q: After seeing all those comments, what was it like seeing the image become a meme later on?

A: When [the meme] started circulating the internet, first of all, my mind was blown. All these people came out of the woodwork from high school that I hadn't talked to in a million years and they would send me the meme and be like, 'Wait a second, is this you?' When that started to circulate, all those weird, negative, super self-conscious thoughts came back up.

For probably six years, I hated that meme with a burning passion. People would send it to me and I was like, get this out of here. This is the worst photo of me ever. I had gained the freshman 15. I had cut my hair after a bad breakup. I was just not looking like myself. So the fact that that thing was cemented in internet history was not my favorite.

Then, somewhere around like 28 or 29, I had a turning point and I was like, 'You know what, let's just lean into this. This is hilarious.' Like, I'm probably never going to look as good as I did when I was 20. Let's just be positive about it. Who cares? Now I have a much different perception of the whole thing.

Q: What's your view of the meme these days? Is it all just positivity now?

A: It's been my dream for forever that some person running ads during the Superbowl is like, 'Hey, you know what? Let's recreate this [meme].' But I don't think it's quite culturally significant enough and it would leave most people confused. But whatever, that's my secret dream.

I know the [versions of the meme that] really drive me crazy and that I cannot stand is when it's really, really dirty or politically inflammatory or something super inappropriate. I can't stand that.

There's one that circulated, I'm not even going to say what it is, but it's so inappropriate and disgusting. I didn't sign off to have my face behind this absolutely horrendous messaging. I don't like this. I don't like that my parents can see that stuff.

That's the dirty underbelly of the fact that your photo can just be used by any human being on planet Earth to create memes. A lot of it is not stuff that I support, not stuff that I stand behind, not stuff that I interact with or like. That can be a bummer.

But I made a TikTok hoping that it would go viral because I was finally like, 'It's time.' It's time to share the story. So I'm happy to have the credit for it.

Q: Do you ever try to make any money off the meme?

A:There's no monetary incentive for any of it. I've looked into that and I don't own the photo. There's no way [to monetize it].

I literally had a friend of mine who's a lawyer talk to me about it. I'm like, 'Is there any way that I can profit off of this?' Because at this point, the impressions [of the meme] have got to be in the multi-billions. They're like, 'No, you can't do anything about that.'

I did do whatever the NFT thing was. I created some version of the meme as an NFT and it never did anything, obviously. When the NFT craze hit [the meme] just wasn't that popular.

Q: The meme has lasted a long time. How have you seen it evolve over the years?

A: It recirculated with… I think his name is Kevin James. There was a trend on TikTok that was like, 'Who put this song on?' And it started with my meme. Then you'd swipe and it was Kevin James smirking and whatever. So, it really hit hard whenever that was popular.

It was 100% circulating during COVID again. It always circulates during the Olympics. So, I'm excited to see what happens this Winter Olympics.

@bluebluedude1

♬ original sound – bluebluedude1

Q: Did you tell your friends and family about the meme? What have their reactions been like?

A: For the first five years, legitimately, I just kind of hid it from everybody. People that knew about it were organically coming across it. A lot of [the reactions were from] random people from high school, random people that I went to college with or used to work with or whatever.

My younger brother got kind of hit hard. I'm the face of his friend group chat. They've really taken it and run with it. His buddies like to bust his chops over it a little bit. I mean, it's a group full of 26-year-old dudes that have had that group chat since they were 14 or whatever.

Q: Have you kept in touch with anyone else in the image? What do they think of the meme?

A: So, everybody else in the meme, I am not close friends with. There's one guy in the meme that's all the way in the back and he has blonde hair and he's wearing sunglasses. His name is Scott Moore.

We were friends in college. There's one other girl in there. Her name is Gabby. We've kept up after college because of the meme. We somehow found each other on Instagram and she and I are both in social media. I own a social media agency. She works in-house for a music company that she does social for. So, it's kind of funny that we both ended up in social media.

She lives in Paris. Her life is awesome. But we laugh all the time about just how ridiculous [the meme] is. When it circulates, we'll send it to each other and be like, here we go again. Let's do this.

Scott Moore was kind of a part of the Jimmy Tatro homie group. So, he did a lot more spots with Jimmy and was in a ton of bits. He used to write for them. I think he still also does some light content creation these days. But yeah, I haven't really kept in touch with anybody. All of my friends were not a part of that scene. They were a part of the scene in the beginning. The people that I went to this party with, they're right at the beginning of this whole situation.

I shoved myself to the front and was like, 'I'm going to be a big part of this.' Joke's on you, Avery. Yes, you are going to be a big part of this.

Q: You're making content on TikTok. What kind of videos do you make and when did you start posting there?

A: I started posting on TikTok in December of 2024, I think, talking about anxiety and taking Lexapro. I started taking Lexapro in February of 2025.

I started documenting my journey with taking anxiety medication, kind of sharing tips, tricks, hacks for dealing with physical anxiety symptoms. I've had a couple of those videos go relatively viral, but nothing as crazy as the meme. Definitely nothing as crazy as the meme.

Q: Have you ever been recognized in public as the meme?

A: I have literally never one time been recognized in public. There is one instance where I was at a bar and the bartender was like, 'Hey, aren't you that girl from that meme?' I was like, 'This is my moment. He's recognizing me.'

No. It turns out that was his entryway because he didn't want to say how he actually knew me, which was through a random friend from high school. Blah, blah, blah, whatever.

So I was kind of recognized, but really, no. He just knew people that I went and happened to know about the meme. So, yeah, I have never one time been stopped in public on the streets by someone.

Q: What's your overall takeaway from being a meme for so many years?

A: I mean, initially, it was negative. I hated the initial reaction. I didn't want that photo out there. I didn't want it circulating. I was super embarrassed by it.

And then later on, I kind of took back the narrative and was like, you know what? This is awesome. Let's lean into it and just make it a thing. If this is going to continue circulating the globe every couple of months or years or whatever, I might as well just take ownership and be proud of it and get on interviews like this because I really love a behind-the-scenes look.

I love listening to podcasts about behind-the-scenes stuff. I love any social media accounts that follow behind-the-scenes stuff. So, at this stage in the game, if I can share the behind-the-scenes of it all, people seem to love it. And if that makes people happy, great. I'm happy. I like making other people happy and making them smile.

Q: There are a lot of people in the meme. Why do you think you were singled out as the "main character" of the meme?

A: I mean, the overarching comments that I get about it is that there's something about my face specifically. What I hear over and over again is like, 'You're the one that I look at.' 'You're the one that is the star of this meme,' which is so stupid.

They'll say that and then they'll say, 'Your reaction is what I feel internally, but I'm too nervous to put out there in the world.' I think it really hits home with people and it feels really relatable. I'm very real, and that really was a very real reaction. It wasn't canned.

I was very drunk, but I do remember making the conscious decision of just be as over-the-top myself as I could be. I don't hold a lot back. I think that just resonates with people, the realness, the authenticity, the, I don't know, look of judgment. I think it's just relatable and people wish that they could react like this more often in their real life.

What's been funny on TikTok is people have just clipped my face and they use it as a response in TikTok comments all the time. It's also kind of gotten a resurgence that way, which is wild. People have taken it and used it as like, a reaction to weird content that they don't want to see.

Q: What do you do now?

A: I founded a social media agency in 2022. I was working in-house for a custom home builder doing social for her. I was her director of marketing.

But I've always had a crush on the internet. I've moonlit for years doing different digital marketing campaigns and things for friends. After I graduated from college, I worked in the interior design space for a really long time and then made my way over into social.

I founded my company, the Wagner Perspective, in 2022 and we work with brand personalities, influencers, small business, big business, real estate agents. We kind of work with anybody. So, yeah, it's fun. It's a lot of work, but it's really fun and pays the bills.

Q: What's the most important piece of advice that you'd offer someone who becomes a meme?

A: Just take back the narrative. I mean, the Bad Luck Brian photo: not a great photo. He's probably not super proud of that. He doesn't look overly handsome in that picture. But he's also taken back the narrative and leaned into it and just been like, 'Yeah, this is me. This is who I am.' It is what it is.

If you find yourself in the position where there's a weird photo of you that circulates online, take back power and post about it on TikTok. I've made a couple thousand dollars on the creator funds from my meme videos. So, at least you can profit in a small way from it.

A big thanks to Avery for talking with us. You can follower her on TikTok @itsaverywagner and you can visit the Wagner Perspective website to check out her business.