He Did It Again Huh Dm Me Meme
MEMES, Part 2: Scumbag Steve 40:12 Copy the code below to embed the WBUR audio histrion on your site
Copy the code below to embed the WBUR audio histrion on your site
Play
If in that location is an OG meme in which a human is the star, Scumbag Steve is information technology. He spread across the net like wildfire in 2011 equally a universal representation of dudes who are the worst. And, similar any person grappling with immediate internet fame, Blake Boston — the man behind Scumbag Steve — tried to capitalize: merch, rap songs, public appearances.
But the full story of what happened to Blake — and his family — has never been told. The Scumbag Steve meme became a bargaining bit in a custody battle, a complicating factor in coming together his nascency mother, the crusade of fights with extended family members, a source of anxiety attacks, and an echo of trauma. In this episode, nosotros get past the origin story of Scumbag Steve and learn about Blake'due south real struggles with PTSD and corruption — and how trauma has brought him and his mother, Susan Boston, even closer.
Testify notes:
- The Scumbag Steve photo
- The Scumbag Steve website
Total Transcript:
This content was originally created for audio. The transcript has been edited from our original script for clarity. Heads upwards that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode mentions the sexual assault of a pocket-size.
Ben: When he pulls up the long driveway of his parents firm in the Boston suburb of Millis, Blake Boston — yes, that is his last proper noun — appears to alive upwardly to our expectations. He gets out of his white Mercedes SUV, lights a Newport cigarette well-nigh immediately, and starts gesturing with a pointer finger on the same mitt where he's fisting a big Dunkin' coffee with the ease of someone who is used to gesturing with a big Dunkin' coffee in his hand.
Amory: Blake is gesturing into his mom'south garage, where a small burgeoning forest of new marijuana plants are turning into teenagers with the help of large black felt pots. Pot in the pots. They're his mom'due south. Blake's immediately friendly, open, and fun. He'due south got a thick golden bristles, thick forearms covered in tattoos. Nosotros become around the back to enter the family unit home from the immaculate deck, and Blake's sons jump upwards. One asks if he can aid u.s.a. put our recording kit together. The other announces that they are about to go save some tadpoles.
Ben: Blake's Mom, Susan, is not exactly a shrinking violet either. She and her son Blake, and her grandsons, seem clearly cut from the aforementioned cloth. Fifty-fifty if technically they aren't. Today's interview is Susan's Mother'south Twenty-four hour period present. Only first she has some questions.
Susan Boston: You're not going to brand us wait like assholes, right?
Ben: No. I hateful that'southward upwards to you.
Susan: No, it's up to editing.
Blake: Yous need to behave, the thing is, is yous say.
Susan: You lot need to bear.
Amory: Spoiler: Nobody in this conversation is going to behave. Susan did effort to make sure that at to the lowest degree Ben behaved, as whatever *mutha* would.
Susan: Don't spill your h2o on all this stuff.
Ben: I'll effort non to.
Ben: Amory and I are hither, trying not to spill the glasses of water ice h2o that Susan gave us, in a kitchen that is beautiful and full of flowers. And nosotros're here with Susan and her son because Blake — after months of DM-ing with us — has agreed to do withal some other interview about what happened to him. He's done many.
Blake: My proper noun is Blake Boston, AKA Scumbag Steve. Scumbag Steve is a meme. It's like a grapheme. Me being a typical guy I was kinda hiding the hurt feelings with anger. Basically someone saw that and was like, that dude looks like a scumbag.
Amory: But not many with his mom. And not many where he'southward talked virtually some of the things that fill out the picture beyond the prototype his mom posted online that became a meme, and turned into a years-long obsessive internet-induced feet attack for both of them.
Ben: Today, Blake and Susan Boston are going to talk more openly about what happened. An interview with public radio is a bit of a departure from their usual Mother's Day routine.
Ben: Is is it true also that that for previous female parent'south days, you used to enquire Blake to.
Susan: Steal?
Ben: Steal some flowers?
Susan: Yep, and I discover that, you know, it's nature. I mean, OK, it is in somebody's yard. But, you know, yous would think--
Blake: It was like bulldoze by. She literally drive me around. So we lived in that time. Then nosotros would literally drive around like Northorfolk canton, I judge y'all'd call it. Yeah, it would be similar five or half-dozen dissimilar towns. And by the time we were washed, she'd accept a boutonniere of all different colored lilacs. Probably if you bought it, the shop would exist like a three hundred dollar bouquet 'cause it was so large and she -
Susan: Yeah, I remember when I offset had Gabriel, my oldest, I was 21 and she was similar, come on, Blake, you got to go over hither. I was living hither at the time and I was like, What are yous talking about? And she'south like, We're going to get my flowers. And I was like, I'yard not fourteen anymore. I'm going to get arrested for this. And she I don't care. I don't intendance. I bought her flowers one time. I bought her lilacs.
Susan: And I was mad. I gave him the silent treatment. I was like, this is something this is a tradition that nosotros demand to do all the time. Only but i guy chased us and he'due south like, Mom, Floor information technology. And I was like, I would be the commuter.
Blake: Yeah, that was the year I was on probation. And you made me do information technology. Oh, like, mom, you're going to get me arrested.
Ben: So I experience like you lot're already answering this question, merely similar, how would yous describe your relationship to each other?
Susan: I don't really similar him.
Blake: I don't even recall her proper name.
Amory: This couldn't be further from the truth. Blake and Susan finish each other's stories. Each other's sentences. Each other'due south jokes. You couldn't find two peas more than in a pod.
Ben: Just a lot of close parent-child relationships are forged in the fires of trauma. And, if yous're lucky, the dearest and humour and struggle that can come after that trauma. Then information technology as well makes sense. Because Blake Boston and his mom take some trauma — some of information technology unrelated to the meme; some of it very related to the meme.
Blake: Like, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words never injure you.
Susan: But they do.
Susan: How-do-you-do, I'thou Susan Boston and I live in Millis. Dog Boondocks. All right. That'southward awful because somebody volition heed to it.
Blake: What happens when you're in the friggin' bulldoze thru at Dunkin' Donuts and someone's like there's that freakin' Sue Boston over there talking trash. Then you're going to phone call me in hysterics. "Get down here, please!"
Susan: No. I'm Susan Boston. And I live in Massachusetts and I'm a mom and a grandmother and a wife. How nearly you, Blake, now that yous can speak?
Blake: Well, since yous asked, my proper name is Blake Boston, a.k.a. Scumbag Steve, and I am a loving father, cook past profession/musician. And I'1000 simply, you know, doing my thing, raising my kids, having a practiced time while doing it. You know,
Susan: Don't forget your fiancée.
Blake: Oh my god.
Susan: That would take been a complete --
Blake: Take two. Hahaha.
Amory: I'm Scumbag Amory.
Ben: I'1000 Scumbag Benny, and yous're listening to Countless Thread.
Amory: We're coming to yous from WBUR, Boston'south NPR station. And today we're talking to a true OG meme and his mom, who talk a LOT — sometimes, at the aforementioned time.
Blake: They did me so bad. They did me so dirty.
Susan: OK, any they even had even––
Blake: Can I finish the question he asked me?
Susan: I gotta think this one thing or else I'll forget.
Blake: This is why you don't do an interview with your mom.
Susan: OK, listen to me.
Amory: Now, when we refer to Blake Boston — who conveniently happens to accept that last name while sounding similar THIS...
Blake: Why brand their jobs harder? Let's make this equally smooth as possible.
Amory: … When we refer to him as an OG meme, it's because Scumbag Steve turned TEN this year. Which is like a century in internet years. And he has remained ubiquitous. In our last episode, nosotros learned about "Kilroy Was Here," a meme that physically made the rounds effectually the globe during World War II.
Ben: But Scumbag Steve was among the outset modern-day memes, reaching all corners of the globe simultaneously. Instantly. Because... the INTERNET. And if sometime during the last decade yous've stumbled across the Scumbag Steve photo showing a random, teenaged, rosy-cheeked kid wearing a crooked, backwards baseball hat, a fur-trimmed coat, a gold chain, scraggly facial pilus and an aloof stare, you lot've probably also seen some of the captions it'due south been given by strangers on the internet.
Amory: Captions that are… scumbaggish. Things similar…
[VOICE-OVER] "Pukes on something. Disappears." "Tin I borrow a dollar to snort this with? Pockets dollar." "Drives slowly in the left lane. Speeds up when you endeavor to laissez passer him." "Gramps gets surgery. Steals pain meds."
Amory: And if you've looked at that photograph of Blake Boston and thought that some of those captions might be true, many things volition surprise yous over the course of this episode.
Ben: Many things, but not everything.
Ben: What was Blake like as a little kid?
Susan: Well, every bit a little child, he was horrible.
Ben & Amory: Hahaha.
Ben: Blake was adopted equally an baby.
Blake: Note to everybody: do not conceive a infant in the back of a musculus automobile considering I'grand the effect.
Amory: Susan says Blake was a truthful mischief maker. Hyperactive, predictably unpredictable — a anarchism and a parental panic attack, all in one.
Susan: I think 1 time we went to the Boston home show and I said to my parents, go to the other end because you could get in and go out. There'due south no way he'll get lost. Merely he wants to get through by himself. Then he went through. I come around to the other side. Um, my parents are looking. I'chiliad like, where is he? Where is he? He freaking climbed out the window. Oh. And started going beeline to where they were selling like candy. And I was I idea he was gone. I was like, this is he'southward the type of kid that, I was at one point thinking of having a leash on him. Everywhere we went, he was the child that everybody loved. Everybody thought was hysterical and caused me, like, just and so much angst. You have no idea. But I adored him.
Ben: Blake was a handful, and Susan brought in professional help pretty early on.
Blake: Well, my start ever therapy session was later on I got flake in the centre by a dog.
Amory: Chip in the eye? Oh God.
Blake: Aye he ripped similar similar half my face off.
Susan: So he was identified like this is how he was identifying with the canis familiaris instead of the victim. So I had to take him to this therapist, his play therapist, because he was biting all the kids at the preschool.
Amory: Blake was only iv years quondam at the fourth dimension. He had to have facial reconstructive surgery. But instead of becoming agape of dogs equally a result, Blake started acting like ane around his classmates.
Blake: I was like tackling them, growling, growling, bitter the domestic dog. Then my brother and I started punching people. I'd like claw at them similar I was a leopard.
Susan: He said in trauma with kids that age. He said sometimes they're going to identify you there. Information technology's a victim, you lot know, and be afraid of dogs or whatever or the rarely. Merely sometimes it does happen. They go the dog and he became the dog.
Ben: Susan says therapy helped her son a lot. Simply as he got older, nothing could stop this teenage boy from existence, well, a teenage male child.
Blake: Oh, and forget well-nigh when I found out about Jackass, I would literally-- April Fools was my day. I put jello in her toilet, saran-wrapped her toilet. I put it it was and so funny. I got her one solar day. I put it, I put it, obviously non a used prophylactic, but I put soap in it, so it fabricated it look used and I--
Susan: That'southward icky. That'south too much. NPR!
Amory: This became a common refrain throughout our conversation with Blake and Susan.
Ben: Every time her son said something outrageous — not prophylactic for work or for broadcast — Susan would yell…
Blake: What do you call up half those books--
Susan: NPR!
Blake: Do you not realize half the romance books out at that place are more than graphic than a porno?
Susan: I told you NPR nosotros're going to bring it upwards a notch!
Ben: We should acknowledge, a four year old biting other school kids? Covering your female parent's toilet with Saran Wrap? This is real life SCUMBAG material right? Or at leastfuture scumbag material.
Amory: Merely Susan — as you may have guessed from the whole Mother's 24-hour interval flower-stealing ritual — she'south pulled off some shenanigans of her own…
Blake: Yous're forgetting the whole point where you clothes up and put on a false beard and like cool disguise and so you lot can lookout me perform.
Ben: Blake has pretty much always wanted to be a musician. He started playing in bands in high schoolhouse. And yes, one time, a friend of his helped sneak Susan into one of his shows so she could cheer him on without, you know, being the mom at the show.
Susan: He put a whole beard on me and a doo-rag, remember?
Blake: I still have that picture!
Susan: And I was dressed in like these big chains. And I was like walking, and he never even saw me until I had, like, didn't have a camera or something —
Blake: I was on stage and I virtually finish rapping considering I was similar, oh --
Amory: Susan has done many things out of love for Blake that have ended up being kind of mortifying for him. Just the most mortifying of all is the reason the Scumbag Steve meme exists.
Susan: Y'all know, exercise nosotros have to actually, like, rub it in?
Ben: The story goes like this: In 2006, around the time Blake was playing shows with his loftier school band, Susan was getting into photography.
Susan: I thought it was so cool, OK, I thought I was-- And they would humor me because I'd apply the same filter and I just practise a blue ruddy light and coming through and I'd exist like, await at this. And he'southward like, proficient, mom, proceed at it, keep at it while they're downstairs probably making out with girls.
Blake: We were doing a lot more than that.
Amory: Susan wanted to support Blake's musical endeavors — beyond just showing up to his shows in a bristles. She thought he needed some promo photos. And so ane 24-hour interval, as Blake is trying to leave the house, she snaps a picture show of him in the doorway. He wasn't ready for it, but information technology was a pretty good shot, she idea.
Susan: And I said to him, give me your MySpace. And he's like, Mom! I'g like, you going to do all of the stuff yous have to promote yourself! So he gave me the thing... I put the pictures upwards.
Ben: Including a picture that would turn Blake Boston into Scumbag Steve. But not for a while. Which makes the origins of Scumbag Steve all the more mysterious…
Amory: Susan posted the photo on MySpace in 2006. But it didn't take off every bit a meme until January 2011, when it popped off amidst Reddit users. Within days, someone had fabricated a website: scumbagsteve.com. Blake and Susan have no idea who started the meme. They barely knew what a meme was at the time.
Blake: All I know is he kept calling. It. he Goes I'yard a me, me, me, me, me, I information technology's non French but I didn't know. Merely let's not talk about alibi because every time yous go in donuts, you and your croissant.
Ben: A girl from school chosen Blake to tell him he was all over Reddit and 4chan — 2 sites he as well wasn't familiar with — which made processing the meme and its prominence a little complicated.
Susan: People would exist like, oh, you front paged on Reddit over again this week. I'd be like, and then...?
Blake: But then there would exist other people, like we go to your mom'southward house so in that location would be your sister, like non my sister, but a distant cousin saying, oh, I don't retrieve he should come. He'due south been stealing pain meds. And I'1000 like, showtime of all, I've never blown coke 24-hour interval in my life, you know what I hateful? I don't do hard drugs. I smoke weed, fume cigarettes, drink alcohol. I've taken mushrooms. but I don't practice hard drugs.
Amory: So this was because someone had put a caption on the flick that had to do with similar stealing drugs?
Susan: Correct. Merely no simply ane of the things that I will tell you is that when we used to get up, go on the Internet and nosotros'd see them, we would be in hysterics laughing. Oh yeah. Total hysterics. Until then, every once in a while, and so we'd look at each other and say, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Amory: Practice you remember any of the captions that you thought were funny?
Blake: Oh, what the hell was it? Steals your keys, spends 20 minutes helping you look for him. Yep. Oh my God. Sleeps on your couch. Steals all the modify inside or the change within the cushions.
Amory: Did whatever of these resonate with you lot?
Blake: The lighter ane.
Susan: A couple of them did.
Blake: I still exercise that at present because like if yous go get on a dark of drinking now, don't go out with ane lighter and I'll wake upwardly the next morning with three.
Ben: Scumbag Steve started out as what's called an ADVICE ANIMAL meme. Basically, they're pictures of animals and humans with captions on them suggesting a certain grapheme archetype. But over time, iterations of the lightheaded stuff started to get pretty upsetting — captions that had to do with mistreating and taking reward of women, which Blake and Susan say isn't him.
Susan: Those hurt. Those were horrible to us.
Blake: Those, I don't like those. There'south a certain line you don't cantankerous.
Amory: Only Blake had no control over when the line was crossed online, who was crossing it, and who was seeing all of these memes. And if the line between Blake Boston and Scumbag Steve was getting blurry for fifty-fifty his family unit members — who thought he might be stealing pain meds considering of a explanation online — what did the rest of the earth think of him?
Blake: Y'all know, I get try to get on dates and so girls wouldn't want to engagement me considering they'd be like, oh, yous're just going to try to have sex with my all-time friend. And I'm like, what are yous talking almost? This is our first date. Aye. You know, people could non they could non separate it. They couldn't recollect. No, I lost a lot of my, you know, high school friends around this area. Huh. And a lot of them stopped talking to me and, you know, thought that I was that person.
Ben: Susan went full Mama Acquit. Just similar she'd done at Blake's shows in high school, she wanted to cheerlead for her son. So she waded into the various online forums where Scumbag Steve was circulating to try to gear up the tape straight.
Susan: I was new to everything, OK? I had no knowledge of the Internet, no knowledge of Reddit, and I literally thought that I could rescue his reputation. And I was on there all night. I'd exist writing something and I signed it as Blake Boston'due south real mom or something like that. And they'd say, Hi, Blake, simply what are you trying to exercise?
Ben: They just assumed it was him.
Susan: Oh, yeah.
Ben: Susan's attempts to defend Blake, heartfelt equally they were, were, of class, futile. And really, she never had a chance.
Amory: Because Blake's random unknown face didn't just go viral. Going viral is brief. Everybody talks about information technology for a day and so mostly never once again. But as any cyberspace cat knows, memes can have 9 lives, ix thousand lives, ix million lives! And suddenly Blake had been catapulted not just into a new level of recognition, but into a new identity as a scumbag.
Ben: And if yous've seen this thing, you accept to admit. The image is perfect. You immediately want to explanation it yourself. Information technology's an amazing canvass upon which to let loose your own ridicule of scumbaggery. It became so iconic that information technology inspired spinoffs. His backwards hat — JUST THE HAT — could be placed on whatever epitome to denote shady activeness. Someone stuck it on a map of the US to criticize Guantanamo, for instance. And, unlike virtually of the other memes from the communication animal genre, Scumbag Steve is alive and well.
Amory: Recollect our meme chorus — the grouping of experts we talked to about memes more generally? Well, every bit the meme chorus explains, the most iconic memes are the ones that perfectly, uniquely, instantly capture an intangible idea — in this case, Scumbag.
Joan Donovan: They're really ways in which we structure and and then create a shorthand for a whole fix of ideas.
Gianluca Stringhini: And then, you lot know, if you want to convey a certain message online, you know that you tin use a certain meme and people will get it.
Amory: So here'due south Blake, in his early 20s with his whole life seemingly ahead of him, and, all of a sudden, he'due south a scumbag in the eyes of merely nigh anybody. His options were limited at this point. But if he couldn't discard the Scumbag Steve characterization, he could lean in to it. Not unlike the dog attack from when he was young, instead of condign the victim, Blake became the thing yous'd think he'd shy away from. Susan watched him "become the domestic dog" all once again.
Susan: And he, similar, become to these performances acting like a complete asshole.
Blake: Oh, yeah. New York Metropolis walking down the street punchin' limos while the driving by, they beep at them, jaywalking. And I'll but punch the limo. I mean, thinking it was my chore because I was there as Scumbag Steve.
Susan: And I'd be like, that's just it's not you. And he's like, Mom, I got to either go with this or non.
Ben: And for a while, Blake went with it. He thought it might exist good for his music career. He posted music videos on YouTube that seemed to fully cover the identity the internet had given him.
Scumbag Steve (rapping): Who's been smokin' up all your weed? Scumbag Steve, Scumbag Steve. And who keeps pickin' out your girlfriend'southward weave? Scumbag Steve, Scumbag Steve. Who showed upwardly and drank all your beer? Scumbag Steve, Scumbag Steve. And how'd you lot get puke on your brand new gear? Oh yeah that's me.
Amory: Doors did open for Blake. He got to perform at S past Southwest in 2013, he was invited to internet conventions like ROFL-Con where he was received like a celebrity. He appeared on WWE.
Ben: Simply there were doors threatening to close, too. When the meme blew upwardly, Susan was in the process of contacting Blake's birth mother, whom he'd never met but e'er wanted to. Blake had always struggled with what he calls a void in his heart. A question for his nascence mother: Why didn't yous want me?
Amory: Susan had tried to enhance someone Blake's birth mother would exist proud of. And then, all of a sudden, correct when they were reaching out to introduce Blake to his nascence female parent, he'd become internationally known as a scumbag. Would she even answer their letters now?
Susan: I was crestfallen. I was like. They're going to think-- her whole family unit, the embarrassment actually of it and the right. Yes. And and and they're existence not who he is at all. But, you know, how do you explain something similar that? I didn't know if they knew what a meme was. I mean, we certainly didn't. You know, in that location were so many things that were built into that.
Amory: Including the fact that Blake himself was a parent at present. And his alter ego Scumbag Steve simply happened to exist spreading in the heart of a custody battle with the female parent of his children.
Blake: More than or less her angle was, oh, aye, he'due south a scumbag and he'southward, you know, out doing all these crazy drugs and this and that where it'south non the case. Yous know, like I said before, I don't utilise drugs, you know, marijuana. But I don't really consider that the marijuana, y'all know. And like that kind of messes with me, too, because, like, I've tried always hard to stay away from crap like that because, y'all know, I've not personally dealt with addiction, simply like a lot of my friends have and I've lost some friends because of habit. It's similar that alone just kind of touches me the incorrect fashion.
Susan: And you accept a limited amount of time to stand in forepart of a judge to say who you are and how you lot tin can be a great parent and and why it's right for your children to be with you. And if y'all can imagine the fearfulness of going in there and thinking that limited amount of time is when somebody holds up his motion picture. With all these sayings on them over and over and over once more or here, go on, Google, Google his name, there's seven meg over seven million memes of him. So how practice y'all explain that to somebody that's not, yous know, aware of what a meme is and what it is so vital to his character and in his life. That'due south where. That's really the crux of what was me wanting to actually brand everything all right forth with for his reputation, but I but I knew that if this went that far and he concluded up losing his children over meme, I don't know how he would have come back from that.
Amory: It's pretty unusual for the father instead of the mother to cease up with custody of kids in a divorce. And neither Blake nor Susan wants to talk very much near what happened and why. They're yet afraid of what might happen. Evidently, in that location was a whole reality show following Blake and his family unit around that MTV shot and piloted, and Blake's ex — the female parent of his boys — got that project deep-sixed.
Ben: But what nosotros can say is that Blake has had total custody of his boys for 6 years at present. And he credits them for helping him get through some darker moments. Some of which have been brought on by the meme — times when the world'due south vision of who Blake was felt suffocating, which he'll admit even while in the aforementioned breath he's almost trying to brush it off.
Blake: There were times where, you know, I get a piddling too drunk because of information technology, and so I'd freak out and, like, scream at the acme of my lungs, like, throw a trivial hissy fit.
Amory: Merely there have been other low moments, brought on past something else entirely.
Blake: Where, you know, I but sit in the house and I'll go through a picayune mental episode where I just become really exhausted or only similar get really sad for no reason. And similar randomly my kids hug me from time to time, but like come up upwardly and say, Daddy, I love yous or you're the best father. So information technology like, snaps me out like that. So I just also hold on to that stuff, too.
Susan: That's function of PTSD.
Blake: Yeah.
Ben: This something else entirely is something fans of the meme accept no idea near.
Amory: Something that he's finally starting to talk about with his mom, the person closest to him.
Blake: So I called her at like ii in the morning, ane morn. And I was like, I got to tell you something. And I was like, exercise you lot remember way back in the day? And she was similar, Blake, I already know. And she started crying and I started crying.
Ben: More in a few.
[BREAK]
Amory: I'll admit that I don't know exactly how to enquire this. So I might I might--
Susan: Exist insensitive
Amory: I might tumble over my words.
Blake: I'm offended.
Amory: But information technology seems--
Susan: I am also.
Amory: Oh adept, skillful if that's where we're starting from, we're in a good place.
Susan: Oh god.
Amory: There'due south a reason I'm tripping over myself here. Every once in a while in an interview, you're striking with something you didn't encounter coming. Something that tints the lens through which yous see a person'southward story. Ben and I had already spent an hour and a one-half with Blake and his mom, Susan, when he told u.s.a. that, for MANY more years than he's dealt with being a meme, he's suffered from PTSD.
Blake: So I was molested at 2 different points in my life once when I was almost five and once when I was about 15, 14.
Ben: Wow.
Susan: An employee or–
Blake: A boss. Boss. Yeah.
Susan: Groomed him.
Blake: We're not mentioning names. We're non mentioning where I worked or non mention any of that.
Susan: He wasn't the only one.
Amory: When you were five, that was someone else
Blake: that was afraid of. So my mom took me to Home Depot and it was the first time I ever went to the bathroom by myself. And I was all proud and some friggin' knucklehead walked in later me and... Yeah, it was pretty bad. Only I lied near it, too, considering I didn't desire anybody to know what happened. Yeah, so he got away with it.
Susan: Well, he didn't really. I hateful, he did become away. They caught him.
Blake: They caught him. But when they asked me if he did anything to me, I said no.
Susan: Well, he was y'all yous were a little child. That was awful.
Ben: Blake didn't tell his mom about what happened to him at his loftier school job until nigh 6 years ago when he was in his mid-twenties.
Blake: It was correct after I got full custody of both my kids, I started having actually bad night terrors about exactly what happened. And sometimes it was the first time, sometimes it was the second. Only I would feel everything that was happening, like it was happening like that fourth dimension.
Susan: When he became a parent.
Blake: When I became a full time parent, I estimate, instead of, you know, half and half.
Ben: So he called Susan in the middle of the night and confirmed what she'd had an inkling about, fifty-fifty though she didn't know what was going on at the time.
Susan: Something was up. I just felt information technology in my gut.
Blake: Well I'chiliad fifteen years one-time and after we're closed, he'due south buying everybody beers and were smoking cigarettes inside the restaurant and we're all getting drunk and having, like, weird ass stuff. I don't know. Yeah. We all thought it was cool considering we're underage and here he is. He's similar he's like rolling joints for everybody who smoked weed and similar you're taking shots and like we all idea nosotros were cool because we were hanging out with an older guy.
Susan: And he was grooming him.
Amory: And then, back to the question I was having a difficult time articulating.
Amory: It seems similar this whole scumbag Steve thing, like you said, you can't control the Internet, so this merely feels like something that was out of your command. And equally a mother, when you experience like something is happening that is out of your control and yous don't know... you're trying and trying and trying to protect your son...but you don't know how to protect your son. And it sounds similar this wasn't the first time that something bad had happened to your son where you don't know how to protect- You lot don't know what to do for him.
Susan: Right. And you lot've got to empathise that, you know, when he had that situation happen–
Blake: Merely say the molestation. Merely say it.
Susan: I know you're right. He. Which is actually skillful Blake, that you tin say it just like.
Blake: It took me 25 years.
Susan: OK, but when he is then that, y'all know, was that a trigger, you know, having had that prior experience, probably. And so and honestly, that's where my husband was so good because he'd be similar this is this. That was that. OK? You trying to protect your son so diligently is not going to modify the past. And it's non the same thing. You lot can't give it the same weight. And so, aye. Was it blurred? Yeah, only it was blurred in some regards and perhaps that's why I was so into it and trying to right it. Only, you know, I don't know, peradventure I've never really actually thought most information technology, non in those terms. Whether it was multilayered and triggers from before. Could have been. Do you remember it was?
Blake: Probably. probably had a lot to do with it.
Susan: Yeah, I never fifty-fifty idea of that, really.
Ben: Office of the reason why nosotros wanted to talk to Blake and his mom together is because it wasn't simply Blake's reputation that was being dragged.
Susan: I was challenged equally a mother, like, am I not doing the right matter? And that it was something I prided myself on that I that, you know, our relationship. And it was like you're telling me I didn't protect my son now?
Amory: It seemed similar everyone in Susan'southward life had an opinion about how she was handling things, and she wasn't always sure when, and how, to attempt to shut them all up.
Blake: But I feel like eventually y'all kind of took my side or my way of thinking nigh it where it'due south like, you know, you can say anything y'all want to, but that doesn't make it true. And so if yous really want to feel that way, so I just won't talk to you anymore. And she said that to people. If y'all really think this is how I raised my son, then don't call me again.
Susan: Yeah, I tin't, I can't exercise it with everybody.
Ben: Sounds like, sounds like he was lucky to have you.
Susan: Lucky to have him in that regard, too, because you lot you lot know, he like I'd be looking at oh, God, look at this 1. This kid said that yous did this, and I'd be writing on 9gag and Reddit similar an idiot. No, he isn't, I'm his mother. And they'd be like, oh yeah, Bob, you're hither again. Y'all're full of shit. And he'd be like, Mom, get with it. Just express mirth information technology out. Remember? I say, OK, I'll endeavor.
Ben: A through and through scumbag wouldn't help his mom process anxiety like this. So, yes, Blake Boston — peculiarly if you know Scumbag Steve — is not actually who you would await him to be.
Amory: It took a while for Blake to get to this point — years of therapy, friends lost, a reputation compromised — all considering strangers online found a picture on MySpace and decided he was Scumbag Steve.
Ben: Do y'all wish that you weren't?
Blake: No. I love it. Now I love it. Aye. Simply it'due south absurd because now, like, I'm on cameos, so I do cameos from fourth dimension to time and, you know, starting a new band. So I'g going to hopefully piggyback off a little bit of Scumbag Steve. Then I become a picayune bit of fizz for the band. So there's a lot of positive things going on, I guess, because of it.
Amory: Earlier this year, Blake was able to cash in on his online alter ego in a fashion that never would take been possible when the meme came out ten years agone. He sold the OG MySpace scumbag photo as an NFT, AKA, a non-fungible token… AKA, he just doesn't own the original image anymore.
Ben: The transaction was in cryptocurrency — xxx Ethereum — which, at the fourth dimension we're recording this, is hovering around 100,000 dollars in worth. Non BAD for a pic he never asked to be taken and that had potential to take his kids away at 1 point.
Blake: And so, you know, I withal have the lid. I'll just throw information technology on from time to time and I'll like walk outside and have the trash out in my apartment complex and anybody'due south similar...
Amory: You get recognized still?
Blake: More or less when I'grand in graphic symbol. Similar if I, you know, I as well have my own T-shirt, has grade at noon, sleeps till iv:00 pm with my picture on it. Then I'll habiliment that sometimes.
Amory: Blake has a level of clarity and bureau over his meme-hood now that he didn't take earlier. He gets to decide when he wants to embrace Scumbag Steve, and when he just wants to be Blake. And maybe more than chiefly to him at present, only "Dad."
Blake: Honestly, my kids, they kept me straight. I nonetheless deport, you know, newborn pictures of my son'due south in my wallet. And so I'll pull that out.
Susan: That's where yous know who you are. When you're a begetter and parent, you know, not for everybody, but for him. He knows who he is, for his children, you know, and. That's stronger than whatsoever meme.
Blake: Definitely.
Ben: Susan'due south kid kept her straight, too. As she and Blake rode out the Scumbag tempest together, he buoyed her with the same realization that buoyed him.
Blake: People are going to say what they want to say about you. Yous can't change the other the way other people, especially if people are bullies, naturally bullies. You lot can't change what they do. You can change your heed-country on how you react.
Susan: No, seriously, that kind of mind frame, because I could not take away being, you know, a mother within the meme situation. There wasn't. Simply he he did it for me. He separated information technology. And that was a lot to expect from somebody that was existence chosen Scumbag Steve worldwide. To look him to be there for me. So I love you and thanks.
Blake: Well, let's non become all mushy now.
Susan: OK, I won't cry.
[MUSIC]
Ben: Next up: the bait-and-switch meme at the center of a billion YouTube views, endless email link jokes, and a vocal that just might accept special musical powers…
Amory: And, the guy who claims to take started information technology all.
Ben: We'll Whorl that into your feed... in a week.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2021/10/01/memes-scumbag-steve
0 Response to "He Did It Again Huh Dm Me Meme"
Postar um comentário