
(PCM) Photographer Martin Le-May was taking a leisurely walk through a London park with his wife when he was able to capture the incredible image of a weasel catching a ride on the back of a woodpecker. It is truly a once in a lifetime photo opportunity and has since gone completely viral.
In honor of #WeaselPecker, as it is so lovingly being referred to via social media, we decided to take a look at 7 of the most viral photographs of all time.
1. Squirrel Crasher
According to Wikipedia, the photograph was taken by Melissa Brandts and her husband Jackson while visiting Lake Minnewanka at Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada in May 2009. While the couple were posing on some rocks next to the lake using a camera with a wireless remote shutter release to take photos of themselves, a golden-mantled ground squirrel began exploring the area. The squirrel stood up right in front of the lens, and the Brandts were able to capture the image of the squirrel, clearly in focus, in front of the camera.
2. Grumpy Cat
Tardar Sauce better known by her Internet name “Grumpy Cat”, is a cat and Internet celebrity known for her grumpy facial expression. Her owner, Tabatha Bundesen, says that her permanently grumpy-looking face is due to an underbite and feline dwarfism. Grumpy Cat’s popularity originated from a picture posted to the social news website Reddit by Bundesen’s brother Bryan on September 22, 2012.
3. Disaster Girl
The photograph of the girl and the burning house was taken by Dave Roth in January 2004 during the local fire department’s live drill training two blocks away from his home in Mebane, North Carolina. While observing the fire, Dave caught his daughter, Zoe, smiling devilishly juxtaposed against the burning house. The photo has since gone viral with people photo-shopping the girls face on various types of disaster photos.
4. Stingray photobomb
The image of three women looking startled when a stingray pops up to visit their photo went viral after being posted on Reddit. The photo was originally taken on a spring break trip to Stingray City in the Cayman Islands in 2008, when the women were sophomores at Texas Christian University. The image was originally uploaded to the girls’ Facebook pages, where former classmate and Redditor epic676 found it and the rest is history.
5. Hulk Smash Unflattering Beyonce
On February 4th, 2013, Buzzfeed published a post-Super Bowl compilation titled “The 33 Fiercest Moments From Beyoncé’s Halftime Show”, featuring fan-made GIFs and news photographs from Getty Images. The following day, Buzzfeed editors received an email from Beyonce’s publicist at Schure Media asking to remove seven of the photos from the original post, noting that they were “unflattering.” Instead of removing them, Buzzfeed further highlighted them in a post also containing a redacted version of the letter. The publicist’s request caused the photos to gain even more unwanted attention and they were turned into countless meme that quickly spread throughout the net.
6. Girl Falling Off Cliff “Mom Was Worried, So I Sent Her This Picture”
Redditor AlphaF submitted a post titled “Mom was worried about my trip to the Grand Canyon, I sent her this picture” to the /r/funny subreddit on November 15th, 2012, featuring a photograph in which she appeared to be falling to her death off a cliff at the Grand Canyon. The photo then began to pick up steam and the woman’s image was used to place her photographically speaking in all kinds of perilous situations.
7. McKayla Is Not Impressed
After receiving a total score of 15.083, Maroney ended up taking the silver medal for the Olympics gymnastics competition. While on the winner’s podium, Bryan Snyder of the international news agency Reuters took a photograph of Maroney making a scowling expression. On August 7th, the single topic blog McKayla is Not Impressed was launched on Tumblr to showcase photoshopped images of Maroney’s glare set against historical or spectacular scenes in the background.