A photo taken 15 years ago became a viral meme three years ago, and is passed around almost as much today as it was then. The dorky tween in the photo bears no resemblance to the real Maggie Goldenberger, now 26. She was taken by surprise when her old picture was captioned and went viral. In fact, she was traveling in Europe and only had intermittent internet time when it became a sensation.
“I had no idea at this point how widespread it was,” said Goldenberger, speaking recently with exactly the kind of composure and articulacy not associated with “Berks,” as the girl in the meme was popularly known.
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Goldenberger’s friends delight in revealing her online identity to strangers at every opportunity. “Then there’ll be a 30-minute session of them looking at every single version of it. I have to fake-laugh as if I haven’t seen them all before,” said Goldenberger. “I just can't believe this is my 15 minutes of fame—I was hoping it would come in another form. But I guess you have to take what you can get.”
You’d think that Goldenberger might be hurt at people all over the world making fun of her awkward adolescent self, but she’s mostly okay with it. The reason why lies in the story behind the original picture, which she tells at Vanity Fair, in an article that also follows the history of the meme and even the reaction of R.L. Stine, the creator of Goosebumps. -via Digg