Meet Minnesota’s Own Meme Kid, Gavin Thomas

Let's rewind to 2012. Vine, the six second video platform, was just hitting it's stride and viral vines were becoming some of the original meme characters we all now know. One of them was Gavin Thomas, a kid from Minneapolis, known as the "fake smile kid".

His uncle was the first to post the videos of him, and from there he blew up. He has over 1.5 million Facebook followers, and 469K Twitter followers. This 8-year-old is making moves!

One of my favorite meme's of his involves him sitting on the couch drinking out of a coffee cup with a smirk. The caption is usually, "when the kids open the presents on Christmas morning you swore you didn't buy".

Gavin recently went on a trip to Beijing, China where he couldn't go anywhere without being mobbed by adoring fans.

Gavin is an icon. He has merch, he gets invited to movie premieres, he hangs out with Harlem Globetrotters, bands, and internet stars, heck he is even on Cameo if you want him to do a shout-out video for you! But under it all, he is just an awesome kid from Minnesota, and a ray of sunshine on the internet. If you're not following him on Twitter already, I recommend you start now. I've been following him for a few years now and his mom's posts on his Twitter are always a happy and welcome distraction!