Hello My Future Girlfriend
About
Hello My Future Girlfriend is a catchphrase derived from the personal homepage of Michael Blount, a boy from New Mexico who sought to find his first love by creating an online profile with sound recordings of his voice.
Origin
Mike Blount created his first homepage titled "Hello My Future Girlfriend"[1] in 1998 while in the sixth grade, lying about his age so he could create an account on the now-defunct web host Tripod. After taking a two-day beginner HTML class, Blount made the site out of what he would later call "an act of desperation."[2]
Spread
Tom Fulp, owner of Newgrounds, posted the link[7] to Bount's original Geocities page to the Newgrounds forums on July 2nd, 2001. On March 1st, 2002, a link to a mirror of the site was posted to the front page of Metafilter.[8] In 2004, the site was discussed on both the eBaum's World Forum[9] and Winamp Forums[10].
By July 2007, the hunt for Blount had begun, and members of the Jinxworld Forums[11] were one of the first to find his MySpace profile.[12] The next year, blog Misanthropy Today[13] included the site as an Internet History Lesson. It was shared on Reddit[14] as a piece of nostalgia in December 2009, where the original poster declared it their "oldest LOL/WTF moment."
Early Response
Ten years after the original site was published, Blount shared the history of his original page on his blog.[2] e began receiving e-mails and phone calls about the site a year later, when now-defunct humor site Chimp.ca contacted him via ICQ for an interview in September 1999. Magoo, the site’s owner, tried to find out if Blount’s website had actually gotten him a girlfriend.[3] After a few messages back and forth, he revealed that he had been talking to several girls, and Chimp staff interviewed one named Jessica[4] October 4th.
On October 8th, the site spoke with Chris[5], who went by the alias “Streak,” who apologized for trolling Blount only after his peers saw it as “preying on a poor defenseless innocent little boy.” After this incident, Blount changed all of his email addresses and chat handles, choosing to stay offline for six months. By 2008, he had come back online, selling merchandise[6] with the catch phrase and published his story on his new blog.[2] He also was interviewed by the revision3’s YouTube show Internet Superstar that June.
Resurgence
In early April 2010 at age 22, Blount decided to post an Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit[15] and do an updated interview with Urlesque[16], where he stated he was gay and recorded a parody video entitled "Hello My Future Boyfriend." His resurgence was covered by Buzzfeed[17], Internet news blog Blippitt[18], and the Tosh.0 Blog.[19]
Search Interest
Search traffic between 1998 and 2004 is not stored, however, at the beginning of the Google Insights, search traffic was almost at max. It has died down in recent years, with a small peak in April 2010, coinciding with his Reddit AMA.
External References
[1] Hello My Future Girlfriend – Home Archived by 2atoms
[3] Archive of Chimp.ca – Mike's First interview
[4] Archive of Chimp.ca – ChimpWEB Interviews Jessica
[5] Archive of Chimp.ca – ChimpWEB Interviews Jessica Impostor
[6] CafePress – Hello My Future Girlfriend
[7] Newgrounds Forums – The Next Big Thing?
[8] Metafilter – Hello my future girlfriend.
[9] eBaum's World Forum – What does everyone look like?
[10] Winamp Forums – Hello my future girlfriend
[11] Jinxworld Forums – }-{ello my future girlfriend.
[12] Myspace – Mike Blount
[13] Misanthropy Today – Internet History Lesson #43: Hello My Future Girlfriend
[14] Reddit – Hello my future girlfriend. This is what I sound like… (This was my oldest lol/wtf moment).
[15] Reddit – I was an internet meme: the "Hello, My Future Girlfriend kid.
[16] Urlesque – Hello Again, Hello My Future Girlfriend Kid – An Urlesque Interview
[17] Buzzfeed – “Hello My Future Girlfriend” Kid Resurfaces
[18] Blippitt – ‘Hello My Future Girlfriend’ Kid Michael Blount Resurfaces on Reddit
[19] Tosh.0 – Hello My Creepy Internet Meme
Top Comment
2Dfruity
Aug 04, 2011 at 12:19AM EDT