SINGAPORE, Sept 19 — You might recognise his face — it’s literally everywhere. Andras Istvan Arato, the man behind the iconic meme “Hide the Pain Harold”, is currently in Singapore for the crypto event Token 2049. He is attending as a guest of the Web3-focused studio Memeland and the NFT community Arc.
As reported by CNA, the 79-year-old Hungarian catapulted to viral fame in 2011 with a series of stock images featuring his signature pained smile.
Yesterday, Arato shared a post from The Fullerton Bay Hotel Singapore, with Marina Bay Sands in the background.
Still sporting that classic ‘pained’ smile, his post garnered over 6,000 likes, accompanied by a couple of his own memes.
Labelling himself a comedian on Instagram, Arato once recounted to The Guardian how journalists began reaching out after his memes gained traction.
“Many people believed I wasn’t real. One person even contacted me asking for proof of my existence.”
His journey began when a professional photographer noticed his holiday photos on Facebook and wanted to feature him in stock images.
The former engineer accepted the offer, and two years later, hundreds of images of the ‘smiling’ Arato were captured in various locations, eventually leading to his viral meme status.
While he acknowledged that it’s impossible to stop meme creation, Arato expressed frustration over individuals using his photos as their Facebook profile pictures — some of which had hundreds of thousands of followers and pretended to be him.
“Some kind of brand had been made out of me, and I would have been a fool not to make use of it,” he was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
In 2017, he created his own Facebook fan page to share videos and stories from his travels.
He humorously added that his wife initially hated ‘Hide the Pain Harold’ — that is, until he landed a paid TV commercial.