A Photobombed Proposal: the Meteoric Rise of InTheWay Guy

Erika Boone/flipflipflipflipflop
Erika Boone/flipflipflipflipflop / Erika Boone/flipflipflipflipflop
facebooktwitterreddit

Some internet memes arise so fast and so strong that they burn out quickly. Here's the story of one that exploded just this morning on reddit, and only time will tell how long it lasts. It starts with a proposal no one who's seen it will ever forget.

Voice actor Nick Landis took his girlfriend Erika to Walt Disney World a couple of weeks ago to propose to her. As the big moment was being photographed, this poor soul stepped in front and immediately realized what he did. It's a moment that will live forever, because Erika posted it to reddit, where it made the front page this morning. 

But that was just the beginning. The tourist had apparently been seen before, in other times and places.

Zeroandfalling witnessed this same guy photobombing the flag raising at Iwo Jima.

Allundertherainbow tried to record the celebration of VJ Day, but ran into the same fellow. 

Mamba_79 remembered where he's seen the guy before. He gets in the way a lot.

Walterwalrus saw him at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Walterwalrus says the guy was also in Dallas in 1963. 

He was at the Yalta Conference in 1945 and was captured by Godfreee.

Jakielim thought he was dead for sure.

Grat5577 did a little digging, and found that he was even in other famous faked photos.

In fact, the poor as-yet-anonymous soul unknowingly achieved the ultimate honor: his own subreddit. There are probably many more photos there by now.

Everyone involved thanks flipflipflipflipflop for making it easy to have some fun with this. And don't worry about Nick and Erika. They got another photograph. We wish them all the happiness in the world.