Mean Face Meme

So this is kind of weird. I was poking around in my traffic logs today when I noticed that I was getting a number of referrals from search engines for the phrase “mean face.” Curious, I typed it into Google Image Search and was mildly surprised that this picture of Sam was third in the results:

Edit: Ha! At the moment it’s the FIRST result returned on a Google Image Search.

This kind of boggles my mind, since this image was a throwaway post from back in 2005 and frankly it’s a lousy picture. The post contains the words “mean face” but otherwise I’m not quite sure how some Google-powered robot looked at that image and decided that it was the third most relevant result for someone searching on that term.

But wait, it gets weirder. A little more investigation into traffic logs shows that this image was occasionally being used around the web, mostly in message boards and places like MySpace. The people weren’t talking about Sam, they were just posting what they thought was a funny picture of a toddler showing some attitude. Someone would say something snarky and someone else would post the picture of Sam’s mean face, along with “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” or somesuch.

I know this kind of stuff weirds Geralyn out, but it just strikes me as both odd and fascinating. It’s just the viral spread of a meme, like that fat kid pretending to have a light saber fight or that cat riding an invisible bicycle, but it does seem a little strange to have it come from so close to home. The internets are weird.

Now, if I can just figure out why Google is also sending me people looking for information on “goldfish teeth” I’ll be satisfied.