Mom I Did It Again Meme 4chan

MEMES, Part 2: Scumbag Steve 40:12

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(Rory Panagatopolis for WBUR)

If there is an OG meme in which a human being is the star, Scumbag Steve is information technology. He spread across the net like wildfire in 2011 as a universal representation of dudes who are the worst. And, like any person grappling with immediate internet fame, Blake Boston — the human 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 scrap in a custody boxing, a complicating gene in meeting his nativity mother, the crusade of fights with extended family unit members, a source of feet attacks, and an echo of trauma. In this episode, we become past the origin story of Scumbag Steve and learn about Blake's real struggles with PTSD and abuse — and how trauma has brought him and his mother, Susan Boston, even closer.

Show notes:

• The Scumbag Steve photograph
• The Scumbag Steve website

Full 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.east. music, sound furnishings, tone) are harder to interpret to text.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode mentions the sexual assault of a minor.

Ben: When he pulls up the long driveway of his parents house in the Boston suburb of Millis, Blake Boston — yes, that is his last name — appears to live upward to our expectations. He gets out of his white Mercedes SUV, lights a Newport cigarette near immediately, and starts gesturing with a pointer finger on the same mitt where he's fisting a large 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's garage, where a small-scale burgeoning wood of new marijuana plants are turning into teenagers with the help of large black felt pots. Pot in the pots. They're his mom's. Blake's immediately friendly, open, and fun. He's got a thick gilded beard, thick forearms covered in tattoos. Nosotros go effectually the back to enter the family unit home from the immaculate deck, and Blake's sons leap upwardly. I asks if he can aid us put our recording kit together. The other announces that they are about to go save some tadpoles.

Ben: Blake's Mom, Susan, is non exactly a shrinking violet either. She and her son Blake, and her grandsons, seem clearly cutting from the same cloth. Even if technically they aren't. Today'due south interview is Susan'southward Mother's Day present. But first she has some questions.

Susan Boston: You're not going to make united states look like assholes, correct?

Ben: No. I mean that's upwards to you.

Susan: No, it's upwardly to editing.

Blake: You need to behave, the thing is, is you lot say.

Susan: You demand to behave.

Amory: Spoiler: Nobody in this conversation is going to behave. Susan did try to make sure that at least Ben behaved, as whatever *mutha* would.

Susan: Don't spill your h2o on all this stuff.

Ben: I'll try not to.

Ben: Amory and I are here, trying not to spill the glasses of ice h2o that Susan gave us, in a kitchen that is beautiful and full of flowers. And we're here with Susan and her son because Blake — after months of DM-ing with us — has agreed to do nonetheless some other interview nigh what happened to him. He'south done many.

Blake: My name is Blake Boston, AKA Scumbag Steve. Scumbag Steve is a meme. Information technology'south like a graphic symbol. Me being a typical guy I was kinda hiding the hurt feelings with anger. Basically someone saw that and was similar, that dude looks like a scumbag.

Amory: But non many with his mom. And non many where he's talked most 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 anxiety 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 Female parent'south Day routine.

Ben: Is is it true also that that for previous mother's days, yous used to enquire Blake to.

Susan: Steal?

Ben: Steal some flowers?

Susan: Yes, and I find that, you lot know, it's nature. I mean, OK, information technology is in somebody's thousand. Simply, you know, you would think--

Blake: It was like bulldoze by. She literally drive me around. So we lived in that time. So we would literally drive around similar Norfolk canton, I guess you'd phone call information technology. Yeah, it would be like five or six unlike towns. And by the time we were washed, she'd have a boutonniere of all different colored lilacs. Probably if you bought information technology, the store would be like a iii hundred dollar bouquet 'cause it was and so big and she -

Susan: Yeah, I remember when I starting time had Gabriel, my oldest, I was 21 and she was like, come on, Blake, you lot got to become over hither. I was living here at the time and I was like, What are you talking about? And she's similar, Nosotros're going to get my flowers. And I was like, I'm not 14 anymore. I'1000 going to go arrested for this. And she I don't intendance. I don't care. I bought her flowers 1 fourth dimension. I bought her lilacs.

Susan: And I was mad. I gave him the silent treatment. I was similar, this is something this is a tradition that nosotros need to do all the time. But but ane guy chased us and he's like, Mom, Floor information technology. And I was like, I would be the commuter.

Blake: Yes, that was the twelvemonth I was on probation. And you made me exercise it. Oh, like, mom, you're going to get me arrested.

Ben: So I feel like you're already answering this question, but like, how would yous draw your relationship to each other?

Susan: I don't actually similar him.

Blake: I don't fifty-fifty remember her proper name.

Amory: This couldn't be further from the truth. Blake and Susan end each other's stories. Each other's sentences. Each other's jokes. You couldn't find 2 peas more than in a pod.

Ben: But a lot of close parent-kid relationships are forged in the fires of trauma. And, if you're lucky, the dear and sense of humour and struggle that tin can come after that trauma. So it also makes sense. Because Blake Boston and his mom have some trauma — some of it unrelated to the meme; some of it very related to the meme.

Blake: Like, sticks and stones may intermission your bones, but words never hurt y'all.

Susan: But they do.

Susan: Howdy, I'k Susan Boston and I live in Millis. Dog Town. All right. That's awful considering somebody will mind to it.

Blake: What happens when you're in the friggin' drive thru at Dunkin' Donuts and someone's like there's that freakin' Sue Boston over there talking trash. Then you're going to call me in hysterics. "Get down here, please!"

Susan: No. I'g Susan Boston. And I live in Massachusetts and I'm a mom and a grandmother and a married woman. How near you, Blake, now that you lot can speak?

Blake: Well, since you asked, my proper noun is Blake Boston, a.k.a. Scumbag Steve, and I am a loving father, cook by profession/musician. And I'chiliad just, you know, doing my affair, raising my kids, having a proficient time while doing it. You lot know,

Susan: Don't forget your fiancée.

Blake: Oh my god.

Susan: That would have been a complete --

Blake: Take ii. Hahaha.

Amory: I'm Scumbag Amory.

Ben: I'thousand Scumbag Benny, and you're listening to Endless Thread.

Amory: We're coming to you 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 same time.

Blake: They did me and then bad. They did me so dirty.

Susan: OK, whatsoever they even had fifty-fifty––

Blake: Can I stop the question he asked me?

Susan: I gotta remember this one matter or else I'll forget.

Blake: This is why yous don't practice an interview with your mom.

Susan: OK, heed to me.

Amory: Now, when we refer to Blake Boston — who conveniently happens to have that last proper noun while sounding like THIS...

Blake: Why make their jobs harder? Permit'southward make this as smooth every bit possible.

Amory: … When we refer to him as an OG meme, information technology's because Scumbag Steve turned 10 this year. Which is like a century in internet years. And he has remained ubiquitous. In our final episode, we learned about "Kilroy Was Here," a meme that physically fabricated the rounds around the globe during World War II.

Ben: But Scumbag Steve was among the get-go modern-twenty-four hour period memes, reaching all corners of the world simultaneously. Instantly. Because... the Internet. And if sometime during the concluding decade yous've stumbled across the Scumbag Steve photograph showing a random, teenaged, rosy-cheeked kid wearing a crooked, backwards baseball hat, a fur-trimmed glaze, a gold chain, scraggly facial hair and an aristocratic stare,  you lot've probably besides seen some of the captions information technology's been given past strangers on the internet.

Amory: Captions that are… scumbaggish. Things like…

[VOICE-OVER] "Pukes on something. Disappears." "Can I borrow a dollar to snort this with? Pockets dollar." "Drives slowly in the left lane. Speeds up when yous try to pass him." "Grandpa gets surgery. Steals pain meds."

Amory: And if you've looked at that photo of Blake Boston and thought that some of those captions might exist truthful, many things will surprise you over the course of this episode.

Ben: Many things, but non everything.

Ben: What was Blake like every bit a fiddling kid?

Susan: Well, as a piffling kid, he was horrible.

Ben & Amory: Hahaha.

Ben: Blake was adopted as an babe.

Blake: Notation to everybody: do not conceive a infant in the back of a muscle car because I'yard the result.

Amory: Susan says Blake was a true mischief maker. Hyperactive, predictably unpredictable — a riot and a parental panic assail, all in one.

Susan: I remember 1 time nosotros went to the Boston home testify and I said to my parents, go to the other end because you could go in and get out. In that location's no way he'll get lost. But he wants to get through by himself. And then he went through. I come around to the other side. Um, my parents are looking. I'm 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 similar, this is he's the type of kid that, I was at one bespeak thinking of having a leash on him. Everywhere we went, he was the child that everybody loved. Everybody thought was hysterical and caused me, similar, just then much angst. You accept no idea. But I adored him.

Ben: Blake was a handful, and Susan brought in professional aid pretty early on on.

Blake: Well, my first e'er therapy session was after I got scrap in the eye by a dog.

Amory: Flake in the eye? Oh God.

Blake: Yeah he ripped similar similar half my face off.

Susan: So he was identified like this is how he was identifying with the dog instead of the victim. And then I had to accept him to this therapist, his play therapist, because he was biting all the kids at the preschool.

Amory: Blake was only iv years old at the fourth dimension. He had to have facial reconstructive surgery. But instead of becoming afraid of dogs every bit a consequence, Blake started acting like one effectually his classmates.

Blake: I was similar tackling them, growling, growling, biting the domestic dog. And 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 place yous there. It'due south a victim, you lot know, and exist afraid of dogs or whatever or the rarely. But sometimes it does happen. They become the dog and he became the dog.

Ben: Susan says therapy helped her son a lot. Just equally he got older, nothing could finish this teenage boy from being, well, a teenage boy.

Blake: Oh, and forget about when I found out most Jackass, I would literally-- April Fools was my day. I put jello in her toilet, saran-wrapped her toilet. I put it it was so funny. I got her 1 day. I put it, I put it, obviously not a used condom, but I put soap in it, so it made information technology look used and I--

Susan: That's icky. That'south too much. NPR!

Amory: This became a common refrain throughout our chat with Blake and Susan.

Ben: Every fourth dimension her son said something outrageous — not safe for piece of work or for circulate — Susan would yell…

Blake: What do you lot call up half those books--

Susan: NPR!

Blake: Exercise you not realize one-half the romance books out at that place are more graphic than a porno?

Susan: I told y'all NPR we're going to bring it up a notch!

Ben: We should acknowledge, a four twelvemonth old bitter 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: But Susan — as y'all may have guessed from the whole Mother's Twenty-four hours flower-stealing ritual — she'due south pulled off some shenanigans of her own…

Blake: You lot're forgetting the whole point where you apparel up and put on a false bristles and like absurd disguise so you can lookout man 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 ane of his shows and then she could cheer him on without, you know, being the mom at the prove.

Susan: He put a whole beard on me and a doo-rag, remember?

Blake: I even so have that picture!

Susan: And I was dressed in like these big chains. And I was like walking, and he never fifty-fifty saw me until I had, similar, didn't take a camera or something —

Blake: I was on stage and I almost cease rapping because I was like, oh --

Amory: Susan has done many things out of love for Blake that have ended upwards being  kind of mortifying for him. But the virtually mortifying of all is the reason the Scumbag Steve meme exists.

Susan: You know, do nosotros accept to actually, like, rub it in?

Ben: The story goes like this: In 2006, effectually the time Blake was playing shows with his loftier school band, Susan was getting into photography.

Susan: I thought it was then cool, OK, I thought I was-- And they would sense of humor me considering I'd use the same filter and I just exercise a bluish red low-cal and coming through and I'd exist similar, look at this. And he's like, skilful, mom, keep 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'southward musical endeavors — beyond just showing upward to his shows in a bristles. She idea he needed some promo photos. So ane 24-hour interval, as Blake is trying to exit the house, she snaps a picture of him in the doorway. He wasn't set for it, merely information technology was a pretty good shot, she idea.

Susan: And I said to him, give me your MySpace. And he'south like, Mom! I'g like, you going to do all of the stuff you lot have to promote yourself! Then he gave me the thing... I put the pictures up.

Ben: Including a motion-picture show that would turn Blake Boston into Scumbag Steve. But not for a while. Which makes the origins of Scumbag Steve all the more than mysterious…

Amory: Susan posted the photo on MySpace in 2006. But information technology didn't have off as a meme until January 2011, when it popped off among Reddit users. Within days, someone had made a website: scumbagsteve.com. Blake and Susan accept no thought 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'chiliad a me, me, me, me, me, I information technology's not French just I didn't know. Merely let'due south non talk virtually alibi considering every time you go in donuts, y'all and your croissant.

Ben: A girl from school chosen Blake to tell him he was all over Reddit and 4chan — two sites he besides wasn't familiar with — which fabricated processing the meme and its prominence a little complicated.

Susan: People would exist like, oh, you front paged on Reddit again this calendar week. I'd be similar, so...?

Blake: Only then there would exist other people, like we get to your mom'due south house and then at that place would be your sister, like not my sister, only a distant cousin saying, oh, I don't call up he should come. He's been stealing pain meds. And I'thousand like, offset of all, I've never blown coke mean solar day in my life, you lot know what I mean? I don't practice difficult drugs. I smoke weed, smoke cigarettes, beverage alcohol. I've taken mushrooms. but I don't do hard drugs.

Amory: Then this was because someone had put a caption on the picture that had to practise with like stealing drugs?

Susan: Correct. Just no but one of the things that I will tell you is that when nosotros used to go up, go on the Internet and nosotros'd see them, nosotros would be in hysterics laughing. Oh aye. Total hysterics. Until and then, every once in a while, then we'd wait 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 information technology? Steals your keys, spends twenty minutes helping you look for him. Yeah. Oh my God. Sleeps on your burrow. Steals all the change inside or the change inside the cushions.

Amory: Did any of these resonate with you?

Blake: The lighter one.

Susan: A couple of them did.

Blake: I still do that now because like if you become go on a night of drinking at present, don't go out with one lighter and I'll wake up the next morning with 3.

Ben: Scumbag Steve started out every bit what's called an ADVICE ANIMAL meme. Basically, they're pictures of animals and humans with captions on them suggesting a certain character archetype. Simply over fourth dimension, iterations of the lightheaded stuff started to get pretty upsetting — captions that had to exercise with mistreating and taking advantage 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. At that place'southward a sure line you don't cross.

Amory: But Blake had no command 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 even his family unit members — who thought he might exist stealing pain meds because of a caption online — what did the residual of the world remember of him?

Blake: You know, I go effort to proceed dates and and so girls wouldn't desire to date me considering they'd be similar, oh, you're but going to try to have sex activity with my all-time friend. And I'm like, what are you lot talking most? This is our first date. Yeah. You lot know, people could not they could not separate information technology. They couldn't recall. No, I lost a lot of my, you know, high school friends effectually this area. Huh. And a lot of them stopped talking to me and, you know, thought that I was that person.

Ben: Susan went total Mama Bear. Just like she'd washed at Blake's shows in high school, she wanted to cheerlead for her son. So she waded into the diverse online forums where Scumbag Steve was circulating to try to set the tape directly.

Susan: I was new to everything, OK? I had no knowledge of the Internet, no cognition of Reddit, and I literally idea that I could rescue his reputation. And I was on there all dark. I'd be writing something and I signed information technology as Blake Boston's real mom or something like that. And they'd say, Hello, Blake, but what are you lot trying to do?

Ben: They but assumed it was him.

Susan: Oh, yeah.

Ben: Susan's attempts to defend Blake, heartfelt as they were, were, of course, futile. And really, she never had a adventure.

Amory: Because Blake'southward random unknown confront didn't simply go viral. Going viral is cursory. Everybody talks near it for a twenty-four hours and then more often than not never over again. Simply as whatsoever internet cat knows, memes tin can have 9 lives, nine grand lives, 9 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 y'all've seen this thing, you lot have to admit. The image is perfect. You immediately want to caption it yourself. It's an astonishing canvas upon which to permit loose your own ridicule of scumbaggery. Information technology became and so iconic that it inspired spinoffs. His backwards lid — JUST THE Lid — could exist placed on any image to announce shady activeness. Someone stuck it on a map of the U.s. to criticize Guantanamo, for example. And, dissimilar about of the other memes from the advice beast genre, Scumbag Steve is alive and well.

Amory: Remember our meme chorus — the group of experts we talked to nigh memes more generally? Well, as the meme chorus explains, the almost iconic memes are the ones that perfectly, uniquely, instantly capture an intangible idea — in this example, Scumbag.

Joan Donovan: They're really ways in which we structure and then create a shorthand for a whole set of ideas.

Gianluca Stringhini: So, yous know, if yous want to convey a certain message online, you lot know that you tin utilise a certain meme and people will become it.

Amory: And so here's Blake, in his early 20s with his whole life seemingly ahead of him, and, of a sudden, he'due south a scumbag in the eyes of but about everyone. His options were limited at this betoken. Simply if he couldn't discard the Scumbag Steve label, he could lean in to it. Not unlike the dog assail from when he was young, instead of becoming the victim, Blake became the thing you'd think he'd shy away from. Susan watched him "become the dog" all over again.

Susan: And he, like, go to these performances acting like a consummate asshole.

Blake: Oh, aye. New York City walking down the street punchin' limos while the driving by, they beep at them, jaywalking. And I'll just punch the limo. I mean, thinking it was my job because I was there equally Scumbag Steve.

Susan: And I'd exist like, that's simply it's non 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 be good for his music career. He posted music videos on YouTube that seemed to fully embrace the identity the internet had given him.

Scumbag Steve (rapping): Who'south been smokin' upward all your weed? Scumbag Steve, Scumbag Steve. And who keeps pickin' out your girlfriend'southward weave? Scumbag Steve, Scumbag Steve. Who showed up and drank all your beer? Scumbag Steve, Scumbag Steve. And how'd you get puke on your brand new gear? Oh yeah that's me.

Amory: Doors did open up for Blake. He got to perform at South past Southwest in 2013, he was invited to internet conventions like ROFL-Con where he was received similar a celebrity. He appeared on WWE.

Ben: But at that place were doors threatening to close, too. When the meme blew upward, Susan was in the process of contacting Blake'due south birth female parent, 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 birth mother: Why didn't you want me?

Amory: Susan had tried to heighten someone Blake'southward nativity mother would be proud of. And and then, all of a sudden, correct when they were reaching out to innovate Blake to his nascency mother, he'd get internationally known equally a scumbag. Would she even answer their messages now?

Susan: I was crestfallen. I was like. They're going to remember-- her whole family unit, the embarrassment actually of information technology and the right. Yes. And and and they're being not who he is at all. But, you know, how practice yous explicate something like that? I didn't know if they knew what a meme was. I hateful, nosotros certainly didn't. You know, there were so many things that were congenital into that.

Amory: Including the fact that Blake himself was a parent now. And his alter ego Scumbag Steve simply happened to be spreading in the middle of a custody battle with the mother of his children.

Blake: More or less her angle was, oh, yeah, he's a scumbag and he's, you know, out doing all these crazy drugs and this and that where information technology's non the instance. You know, like I said before, I don't use drugs, you lot know, marijuana. But I don't really consider that the marijuana, you know. And like that kind of messes with me, too, considering, similar, I've tried always hard to stay away from crap like that considering, y'all know, I've not personally dealt with addiction, but like a lot of my friends have and I've lost some friends considering of habit. It'due south like that lone just kind of touches me the wrong way.

Susan: And you have a limited amount of time to stand in front of a estimate to say who you are and how you tin be a great parent and and why information technology's right for your children to be with y'all. And if y'all tin imagine the fear of going in there and thinking that express amount of time is when somebody holds up his motion-picture show. With all these sayings on them over and over and over again or here, go along, Google, Google his name, in that location'southward seven million over vii million memes of him. So how do you explain that to somebody that's not, you know, aware of what a meme is and what information technology is and then vital to his character and in his life. That's where. That'southward really the crux of what was me wanting to actually make everything all right along with for his reputation, only I just I knew that if this went that far and he ended 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 end up with custody of kids in a divorce. And neither Blake nor Susan wants to talk very much about what happened and why. They're still afraid of what might happen. Apparently, there was a whole reality evidence post-obit Blake and his family around that MTV shot and piloted, and Blake's ex — the mother of his boys — got that projection deep-sixed.

Ben: Simply what we can say is that Blake has had full custody of his boys for 6 years now. And he credits them for helping him go through some darker moments. Some of which have been brought on past the meme — times when the world's vision of who Blake was felt suffocating, which he'll admit even while in the same breath he's virtually trying to brush information technology off.

Blake: In that location were times where, you know, I go a little too drunk because of it, and then I'd freak out and, like, scream at the height of my lungs, like, throw a niggling hissy fit.

Amory: Just there take been other depression moments, brought on by something else entirely.

Blake: Where, you know, I only sit in the business firm and I'll go through a little mental episode where I just go really wearied or only like go really sad for no reason. And similar randomly my kids hug me from time to time, just similar come upward and say, Daddy, I love you or you're the best father. And then it like, snaps me out like that. So I merely also hold on to that stuff, too.

Susan: That's office of PTSD.

Blake: Yeah.

Ben: This something else entirely is something fans of the meme have no idea almost.

Amory: Something that he'southward finally starting to talk about with his mom, the person closest to him.

Blake: And then I called her at like two in the morning, ane morning. And I was like, I got to tell yous something. And I was like, exercise you retrieve way back in the twenty-four hour period? And she was like, Blake, I already know. And she started crying and I started crying.

Ben: More in a few.

[Pause]

Amory: I'll admit that I don't know exactly how to inquire this. And so I might I might--

Susan: Be insensitive

Amory: I might tumble over my words.

Blake: I'm offended.

Amory: But information technology seems--

Susan: I am likewise.

Amory: Oh proficient, good if that'southward where nosotros're starting from, nosotros're in a good place.

Susan: Oh god.

Amory: At that place's a reason I'grand tripping over myself here. Every once in a while in an interview, y'all're hit with something yous didn't see coming. Something that tints the lens through which you run into a person'due south story. Ben and I had already spent an hr and a half with Blake and his mom, Susan, when he told us that, for MANY more than years than he's dealt with existence a meme, he'southward suffered from PTSD.

Blake: So I was molested at two different points in my life one time when I was about five and once when I was near 15, xiv.

Ben: Wow.

Susan: An employee or–

Blake: A boss. Boss. Yeah.

Susan: Clean-cut him.

Blake: We're not mentioning names. We're non mentioning where I worked or not mention any of that.

Susan: He wasn't the just one.

Amory: When y'all were five, that was someone else

Blake: that was afraid of. So my mom took me to Dwelling 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 after me and... Yeah, it was pretty bad. But I lied near it, too, considering I didn't want everyone to know what happened. Yeah, then he got away with information technology.

Susan: Well, he didn't actually. I mean, he did get abroad. They defenseless him.

Blake: They caught him. Only when they asked me if he did anything to me, I said no.

Susan: Well, he was you you lot were a little kid. That was awful.

Ben: Blake didn't tell his mom almost what happened to him at his high school job until about six years ago when he was in his mid-twenties.

Blake: Information technology was correct later on I got total custody of both my kids, I started having actually bad night terrors about exactly what happened. And sometimes it was the outset time, sometimes information technology was the 2nd. But I would feel everything that was happening, like it was happening like that time.

Susan: When he became a parent.

Blake: When I became a total time parent, I guess, instead of, you know, one-half and half.

Ben: So he chosen Susan in the middle of the night and confirmed what she'd had an inkling nigh, even though she didn't know what was going on at the fourth dimension.

Susan: Something was upward. I just felt it in my gut.

Blake: Well I'm 15 years old and later we're airtight, he's buying everybody beers and were smoking cigarettes within the restaurant and we're all getting drunk and having, like, weird donkey stuff. I don't know. Yes. Nosotros all idea it was cool because we're underage and here he is. He'south like he's like rolling joints for everybody who smoked weed and like y'all're taking shots and like nosotros all thought we were cool considering we were hanging out with an older guy.

Susan: And he was grooming him.

Amory: So, dorsum to the question I was having a hard time articulating.

Amory: It seems like this whole scumbag Steve thing, like y'all said, you can't control the Internet, so this just feels like something that was out of your control. And as a female parent, when you feel similar something is happening that is out of your control and you 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 kickoff time that something bad had happened to your son where you don't know how to protect- Yous don't know what to practice for him.

Susan: Right. And yous've got to understand that, you know, when he had that situation happen–

Blake: Only say the molestation. Just say it.

Susan: I know you're correct. He. Which is actually good Blake, that you tin say information technology just like.

Blake: It took me 25 years.

Susan: OK, simply when he is so that, you know, was that a trigger, you know, having had that prior experience, probably. And then 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 and then diligently is non going to alter the past. And it's non the aforementioned affair. You can't give it the same weight. So, aye. Was it blurred? Yeah, merely information technology was blurred in some regards and mayhap that's why I was then into it and trying to correct it. Merely, you know, I don't know, peradventure I've never really actually idea about it, non in those terms. Whether it was multilayered and triggers from before. Could accept been. Do you retrieve it was?

Blake: Probably. probably had a lot to do with it.

Susan: Yeah, I never fifty-fifty thought of that, really.

Ben: Part of the reason why we wanted to talk to Blake and his mom together is considering it wasn't just Blake's reputation that was being dragged.

Susan: I was challenged every bit a mother, like, am I non doing the right thing? And that it was something I prided myself on that I that, you know, our relationship. And it was like yous're telling me I didn't protect my son now?

Amory: It seemed similar everyone in Susan's life had an opinion about how she was handling things, and she wasn't always sure when, and how, to try to close them all upwards.

Blake: But I experience like somewhen yous kind of took my side or my way of thinking well-nigh it where it's like, you know, y'all tin can say anything you desire to, but that doesn't make information technology true. Then if you really want to feel that manner, and so I merely won't talk to you anymore. And she said that to people. If you really think this is how I raised my son, and then don't call me once again.

Susan: Yeah, I can't, I can't do it with everybody.

Ben: Sounds like, sounds like he was lucky to have y'all.

Susan: Lucky to have him in that regard, besides, because you yous know, he like I'd be looking at oh, God, look at this one. This kid said that y'all did this, and I'd be writing on 9gag and Reddit like an idiot. No, he isn't, I'm his mother. And they'd exist like, oh yeah, Bob, you're here over again. You're full of shit. And he'd be like, Mom, go with it. Just express joy it out. Remember? I say, OK, I'll endeavor.

Ben: A through and through scumbag wouldn't help his mom process anxiety like this. Then, yeah, Blake Boston — especially if yous know Scumbag Steve — is not really who you would expect him to be.

Amory: It took a while for Blake to go to this betoken — years of therapy, friends lost, a reputation compromised — all because strangers online found a picture on MySpace and decided he was Scumbag Steve.

Ben: Do you wish that you weren't?

Blake: No. I beloved it. Now I honey it. Yeah. Merely it's cool because now, like, I'chiliad on cameos, so I practise cameos from time to fourth dimension and, you know, starting a new ring. So I'm going to hopefully piggyback off a piffling fleck of Scumbag Steve. So I get a little bit of buzz for the band. So at that place's a lot of positive things going on, I guess, considering of information technology.

Amory: Before this yr, Blake was able to cash in on his online change ego in a way that never would have been possible when the meme came out ten years agone. He sold the OG MySpace scumbag photo every bit an NFT, AKA, a non-fungible token… AKA, he just doesn't ain the original image anymore.

Ben: The transaction was in cryptocurrency — xxx Ethereum — which, at the time we're recording this, is hovering around 100,000 dollars in worth. NOT BAD for a picture he never asked to be taken and that had potential to take his kids away at ane point.

Blake: And then, you know, I still have the hat. I'll just throw it on from fourth dimension to fourth dimension and I'll like walk outside and take the trash out in my apartment circuitous and anybody's like...

Amory: You become recognized still?

Blake: More than or less when I'thou in grapheme. Like if I, you lot know, I too have my own T-shirt, has course at noon, sleeps till 4:00 pm with my pic on it. So I'll wearable that sometimes.

Amory: Blake has a level of clarity and agency over his meme-hood at present that he didn't have earlier. He gets to decide when he wants to embrace Scumbag Steve, and when he just wants to exist Blake. And maybe more importantly to him now, simply "Dad."

Blake: Honestly, my kids, they kept me direct. I still comport, you know, newborn pictures of my son's in my wallet. And then I'll pull that out.

Susan: That'southward where you know who you are. When you're a male parent and parent, you know, not for everybody, but for him. He knows who he is, for his children, you know, and. That'southward stronger than whatever meme.

Blake: Definitely.

Ben: Susan's child kept her directly, besides. As she and Blake rode out the Scumbag storm together, he buoyed her with the aforementioned realization that buoyed him.

Blake: People are going to say what they want to say almost you. Y'all can't change the other the way other people, especially if people are bullies, naturally bullies. You can't change what they practise. You tin alter your mind-country on how y'all react.

Susan: No, seriously, that kind of mind frame, considering I could non take away being, you know, a mother within the meme situation. There wasn't. But he he did it for me. He separated information technology. And that was a lot to expect from somebody that was beingness called Scumbag Steve worldwide. To expect him to be there for me. Then I love you and thank you.

Blake: Well, let's non get 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, countless email link jokes, and a song that but might have special musical powers…

Amory: And, the guy who claims to accept started it all.

Ben: We'll Roll that into your feed... in a week.

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Source: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2021/10/01/memes-scumbag-steve