00:00In 2012, while backpacking through India with her girlfriend, Maggie Goldenberger got a message from her mom.
00:05It said something strange, something about a German meme that used Maggie's photo.
00:10She ignored it at first, but then a friend reached out too, saying someone they know had been reposting a meme non-stop,
00:16a meme they didn't even realize was Maggie.
00:18That's when it hit her. She hadn't just become a meme, she was already viral.
00:21A fun photo I took when I was about 10 years old. I was holding up Goosebumps books and that resurfaced years later in 2012 and became a viral meme.
00:32The photo was simple. A kid with braces, wild pigtails, clutching three Goosebumps books with a crazed look on her face.
00:38The caption, Erma Gerd, Gersperm. It became one of the most iconic memes of the Advice Animals era.
00:44But Maggie had no idea this was happening, because the photo had been taken years earlier.
00:48And when it went viral, she wasn't even online. So what actually happens when your awkward childhood photo becomes one of the biggest memes of the year?
00:56And where is Maggie Goldenberger now? Let's rewind.
00:59The Erma Gerd meme features Maggie as a tween, hair and pigtails, wearing a vest over her long-sleeved shirt,
01:05holding three R.L. Stine Goosebumps books, Monster Blood 3, It Came From Beneath the Sink, and Say Cheese and Die.
01:11The image was paired with stylized, exaggerated text meant to sound like someone speaking through braces.
01:16It was instantly meme-able.
01:17It all started when Canadian Redditor, XWavy, found the image on a Photobucket account and posted it to r slash funny with the caption,
01:25Just a book owner's smile.
01:27Then, another Redditor, PlantLife, added the now iconic line,
01:30Gershberm, m'er fervid berksh.
01:33From there, the meme exploded online.
01:35Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, the image was everywhere.
01:38What most people didn't know was the photo wasn't random. It had backstory.
01:41Maggie grew up in Olympia, Washington, where she described herself as a total tomboy.
01:46She loved sports, comedy, and being goofy with her friends.
01:49The photo was taken in either 1998 or 1999, when Maggie was around 10 years old.
01:54Her best friend, Kaylin, had just gotten a Polaroid camera, and the two of them loved staging silly dress-up photo shoots.
02:00One night, we were taking pictures, and I was trying to look as ridiculous and as nerdy as possible.
02:06We got the Goosebumps books out.
02:07We grabbed her old backpack from first grade, a vest her mom found at Goodwill, took my hair and put them in pigtails.
02:13I had a retainer that I usually wore at night.
02:17We got it out.
02:18I threw it in and just started making faces.
02:20The photo was a joke, a character, and it lived quietly on Kaylin's fridge for years,
02:25until she uploaded it to Facebook and MySpace, thinking nothing of it.
02:29Eventually, it got scraped, re-uploaded, and spread by people who had no idea who Maggie was.
02:34That included one of her old classmates, who reposted the meme on e-bombsworld without realizing it was a photo of someone he knew.
02:40Maggie texted him, asking why he'd post her photo without asking.
02:44He was shocked.
02:45He genuinely didn't know it was her.
02:47He said he found it from a comedy website.
02:49So then I realized, there's some legitimacy to what my mom's saying.
02:52So now I really want to know what was going on.
02:55Who would put my photo on the internet?
02:56That's when Maggie realized how far the meme had spread, and how little control she had over it.
03:01By 2012, Irma Gerd was everywhere.
03:04There was an Irma Gerd translator that let users convert normal text into meme speak.
03:08There were parody videos, oil paintings, and spin-offs.
03:11The Nerdist made a full sketch.
03:13Paramore's Hayley Williams even got in on the joke.
03:15R.L. Stine himself commented on the meme, saying he didn't really get it, but that it definitely boosted goosebumps sales.
03:21Why is it funny? I didn't get it.
03:23It's pronounced goosebumps. Goose-bums.
03:26At one point, Maggie thought about doing a Reddit AMA to clear things up, but then things got complicated.
03:31I didn't see any photos of my actual photo online until my brother's friend was trying to prove it was me.
03:38He wanted me to participate in an AMA on Reddit and said the proceeds would go to charity and all these good things.
03:45And then next thing I know, I'm getting a message from a Reddit user showing me what he's posting to prove it was me.
03:50I'm like a bunch of personal information, a bunch of personal photographs, and I was like, whoa!
03:54I was like, this is not what I signed up for.
03:57And like when I backed up from it, that was absolutely the most unnerving thing.
04:02A friend of her brother's tried to prove she was the meme girl by posting old photos of her online, including one of her in a bikini.
04:09He also outed her relationship with her girlfriend at the time, who wasn't out yet to her conservative family.
04:14It was a total violation of privacy, one that made Maggie pull back from the spotlight entirely.
04:19Despite the meme's popularity, Maggie never tried to monetize it.
04:22She didn't sue anyone.
04:24She didn't sell merch.
04:25She just moved on.
04:26People told her to lawyer up.
04:27Others wanted her to sell t-shirts.
04:29But Maggie didn't understand why people thought it was so funny or why anyone would want her face on merchandise.
04:34She figured the meme would disappear in a week.
04:36I did think about like selling shirts and all those things, but I'm like, I feel awful.
04:40They're not like, you know, like organic, sustainable, you know?
04:43And I was like, I'm like charging $50 for a shirt.
04:46No, no, no, you know what I mean?
04:47So it just didn't seem to like match, just didn't seem to line up.
04:50The only time she leaned into it publicly was in 2015, when Vanity Fair interviewed her.
04:55I don't want to be known as the Ermagerd girl forever, she said.
04:58But I also figured I might as well just tell the story.
05:00She told the New Statesman that she avoids bringing it up, especially on dates.
05:04I keep it on the DL, she said.
05:06There was one other time she briefly embraced her meme status, a furry party in San Francisco.
05:11She was invited to attend and met Paul Bear Vasquez, better known as Double Rainbow Guy.
05:16According to Maggie, the event was a jungle-themed brewery party where guests were dressed in fursuits
05:21and the dinner was infused with something she didn't realize until it kicked in.
05:25So where's Maggie Goldenberger now?
05:27After the meme went viral while she was traveling in India, Maggie returned home and earned her nursing degree.
05:32Today, she's a cardiac nurse living in Phoenix, Arizona.
05:35She's kept a low profile ever since.
05:37No influencer brand, no TikTok account, and no desire to capitalize on meme fame.
05:42She says she's only ever been recognized in public once.
05:45These days, she still sees the meme pop up now and then and actually finds it funny.
05:48Her favorite version, her own face, photoshopped onto Mary Poppins.
05:52At this day, when I see my picture pop up, it's fun because it's not common and it's really random.
05:59And it's just, yeah, it's like a joke, an inside joke.
06:02And then my friends, I'm like, I'm still alive.
06:04I still got it.
06:05This old lady's still ticking.
06:06So yeah, I really enjoy it now.
06:08For some early meme stars, viral fame was a launch pad.
06:11For Maggie Goldenberger, it was just something that happened to her.
06:14Something weird, funny, and a little bit traumatic.
06:17A flash of internet history she didn't ask for.
06:20The rest of the world may remember her as Irma Gerd Girl, but Maggie, she's just a nurse
06:24in Arizona, who once took a photo with a stack of Goosebumps books.
06:28And if there's one message she'd leave you with, it's this.
06:30Reading is cool, and do not let the internet tell you otherwise.
06:34It's cool, and do not let the internet tell us.
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