Weird Things People Got Famous For!

The Success Kid

Lucas Brown

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Sep 9, 2021

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You might remember this kid from seeing all the ‘success’ related memes on the Internet. Well, here comes Sammy Griner, a boy whose mother took this picture of him when he was just 11 months old, in 2007 and posted it on Flickr. Nothing happened for two years, until one day the photo went ‘crazy viral’.

The Man with the Golden Arm

James Harrison has donated blood more than 1000 times, which is a world record. His act has saved 2.2 million babies, including his own grandson, from the deadly Rhesus disease. The uniqueness of his blood has also helped in creating the Anti-D vaccine.

The “Immortal” woman

Henrietta Lacks died at the age of 31 after she developed cervical cancer. While she was alive, cells from her cervix (both healthy and cancerous) were given to researcher George Otto Gey at John Hopkins University (where she was undergoing treatment), without her knowledge. George found that her cells behaved differently from any other cells he’d ever seen. From her healthy cells, he could create the first “immortal” human cells named HeLa (after her name). They were termed immortal because they lived longer than normal cells.

The Mars Mohawk Guy

Bobak Ferdowsi became quite a sensation during the August 6, 2012 landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars; as he wore an unusual mohawk style, seen on NASA TV’s live broadcast of the event. The stylish Flight Director’s hairstyle was also acknowledged by President Obama.

The man who was too handsome for Saudi Arabia

In 2013, Omar Borkan Al Gala, an actor/photographer/poet from Dubai, along with two other men were thrown out of Riyadh’s annual Janadriyah Festival by Religious Police for being ‘ridiculously handsome’. It was later found out that that wasn’t the reason why Al Gala was chucked out. He was booked for dancing inappropriately at a wedding.

The ‘Cricket’ Woman

Ashley Kerekes, an American woman, became a Twitter sensation for her handle name: “The Ashes”, which is the famous cricket series between England and Australia. She got a lot of followers overnight and was bombarded by tweets and cricket-related messages, to the extent that she started following the sport!