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10 People Who Shot To Fame In The WEIRDEST Ways

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A Facebook Live video from a Kohl’s parking lot turned into the most-watched clip in the platform’s history — and it wasn’t the only unlikely path to internet stardom.

Traditional fame usually comes with a resume: auditions, callbacks, years of grinding before a big break. But the internet has built its own shortcut, one where a laugh, a rainbow, or a badly timed camera angle can turn a total stranger into a household name overnight. A new countdown video, “10 People Who Got Famous On The Internet,” runs through the wildest examples of that phenomenon — moments nobody planned, filmed with nothing more than a phone, that ended up reaching hundreds of millions of people.

• Candace Payne’s “Chewbacca Mom” Facebook Live video from May 2016 topped 140 million views within days, becoming the most-watched Facebook Live broadcast in history at the time.
• Psy’s “Gangnam Style” became the first video ever to cross one billion views on YouTube.
• Ken Bone went viral for a single earnest question at a 2016 presidential debate and later starred in his own commercial off the strength of it.

Chewbacca Mom’s Record-Breaking Laugh

In May 2016, Candace Payne, a mother from Texas, sat in her car outside a Kohl’s department store and pulled a Hasbro electronic Chewbacca mask over her face just to test it out. The mask growled every time she moved her jaw, and Payne’s reaction — an uncontrollable, wheezing fit of laughter — was captured live on Facebook. Within days, the clip had racked up more than 140 million views, breaking the record as the most-watched Facebook Live broadcast ever posted on the platform.

The clip’s appeal was that there was no punchline, no script, and no attempt at humor — just a genuine reaction that people couldn’t stop watching. Payne’s newfound fame moved fast from there, landing her spots on major network programs and high-profile morning shows almost immediately after the video broke.

Chewbacca Mom’s laugh became the most-watched Facebook Live video in history — over 140 million views in a matter of days.

Viral Catchphrases That Outran Their Origin Story

Some of the internet’s most quoted figures got there through moments that started as local news segments. Antoine Dodson became a viral sensation after an Alabama news station interviewed him following a home invasion, with his fiery, unscripted warning — “Hide yo kids, hide your wife” — turning into a catchphrase that outlived the original story entirely.

Rick Astley found his own second act through no effort of his own. In 2007, “rickrolling” turned his 1987 single “Never Gonna Give You Up” into an internet-wide prank, tricking millions of users into clicking a disguised link that dropped them straight into his music video. The joke got so widespread that Astley himself became a trending name again, decades after the song’s original run, and picked up a new generation of listeners in the process. Viral moments like this are exactly the kind of thing that can also blow up in the other direction, the same way social media has ended careers rather than launched them.

Animals Became Memes, Then Became Brands

Not every viral star was human. A photo of a permanently frowning cat named Tardar Sauce spread across social media and eventually became the meme empire known as Grumpy Cat, complete with merchandise and endorsement deals. Lil Bub followed a similar path — a cat born with genetic abnormalities that gave her an unusual appearance and a tongue that never retracted, she built a following large enough to support her own web series.

Both cases point to the same pattern running through the whole list: a single unscripted image, with no publicist and no campaign behind it, was enough to build a recognizable brand almost entirely through shares and reposts.

Accidental Stars of Politics and Pop Culture

Some of the biggest internet moments came from people who weren’t trying to go viral at all. Ken Bone became an instant sensation during a 2016 presidential debate simply by asking an earnest, plainly worded question on camera — his glasses and red sweater turning into their own meme before the debate had even ended. Paul Vasquez, better known as the Double Rainbow Guy, filmed himself reacting with over-the-top emotion to a double rainbow over his home near Yosemite National Park in 2010, and his raw enthusiasm did the rest.

Others rode a wave that started somewhere else entirely. Susan Boyle became a global name overnight after her “Britain’s Got Talent” audition of “I Dreamed a Dream” stunned a skeptical panel of judges, while South Korean rapper Psy turned “Gangnam Style” into the first YouTube video to ever hit one billion views. Even sports produced its own entry: a photo from Michael Jordan’s 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech got turned into the “Crying Jordan” meme, a shorthand for disappointment that spread across sports commentary for years afterward. It’s the same unpredictable internet math that’s turned plenty of live broadcasts into unexpected viral clips.

Payne’s follow-up act was talk-show hits and meet-and-greets rather than a movie deal, and that’s the pattern across nearly every name on this list — Antoine Dodson, Ken Bone, the Double Rainbow Guy — a massive, instant spike in views followed by a much quieter second act. The internet moved on to its next clip within weeks; the record Chewbacca Mom set for Facebook Live, though, stuck around a lot longer than the news cycle that made her famous.