Ice Cream Cone Guy
About
Ice Cream Cone Guy is a photoshop meme based on an exploitable news photograph of an unhappy looking man with an ice cream cone running across street in Washington D.C. during the North American blizzard of January 2011. The candid snapshot of the mysterious man--later identified as Zach Burroughs--was first featured on the front page of Washington Post on January 27th, 2011.
Origin
On January 27th 2011, The Washington Post featured a front page article about a severe snowstorm that struck Washington D.C. and the rest of U.S. East Coast, accompanied by dozen of photographs. Among them were a photograph of an annoyed looking pedestrian with an ice cream cone running across the intersection of 15th and L streets in downtown D.C., taken by photographer Ricky Carioti. That same day, Redditor JPEGBundy submitted an unedited version of the Washington Post photograph in a post ittled "I feel that the world will be a better place if this picture gets the Photoshop treatment."
Spread
Also on January 27th, the newly dubbed "Ice Cream Cone Guy" meme was picked up by BuzzFeed, Ebaum's World, Today's Big Thing, My NY plate and The Daily What, followed by Blame It On the Voices, DCist, ABC7, Urlesque, Geekosystem and The Technicians. The meme was also mentioned by French news outlets LCI and Le Post. In addition, there is a Facebook fan page and variations of the meme can be found under the tag "Ice Cream Cone Guy" on Tumblr.
Notable Examples
Identity Revealed
On January 28th, as a followup to the Story Lab article, Washington Post ran a live interview with Zack Burroughs, an attorney who works in downtown D.C.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Washington Post – Washington lurches to its feet after hard-hitting storm
[2] Washington Post – D.C. region digs out after a night of snow and slush
[3] Reddit – I feel that the world will be a better place if this picture gets the Photoshop treatment!
[4] Washington Post – Raw Photo
[5] "BuzzFeed – Why Is this Dude Running Through a Snowstorm Holding an Ice Cream Cone?
[7] Today's Big Thing – Pictures
[8] Tumblr – Washington Post Style
[8] The Daily What – Front Page Photo of the Day
[10] Blame It on The Voices – Pic of the Day
[11] DCist – Don't Worry, Reddit Has The "Ice Cream Guy" Meme Covered
[12] ABC7 – Thundersnow Ice Cream Cone Guy
[13] Facebook – Zach Burroughs – The Washington Post Ice Cream Guy
[13] The Washington Post – The story behind the ice cream cone man
[14] Nola – The Guy Running in the Snow with Ice Cream Cone
[15] Tumblr – Thundersnow and ice cream cones bitchesssss
[16] ABC World News – Ice Cream Guy Caught in Thundersnow
[17] Metafilter – Run for Your Life
[18] Urlesque – Ice Cream Guy Thundersnow
[19] Geekosystem – Ice Cream Man
[20] The Chive – The Ice Cream Guy Gets Shopped
[21] Le Post – 'Ice cream guy' fait la Une du Washington Post puis enflamme le Web
[22] The Technicians – Meme of the Month
[23] Tumblr – Tagged results for Thundersnow Ice cream Cone Guy
[24] Washington Post – Ice Cream Social
Top Comment
NightmareNear
Jul 25, 2013 at 08:36PM EDT