9 spots left:

Join us Dec. 1-3 in Nashville for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

REGISTER

Brands have discovered the ‘Damn Daniel’ meme

It’s hard to keep up, but there’s a new teenager the Internet is obsessing over.

His name is Daniel Lara, a high school student from California, who’s the center of the latest viral video called “Damn Daniel.”

Admittedly, it’s easier to watch than explain, but turn the volume down.

Here it is:

The clip, which are several Snapchat videos stitched together, was tweeted by his friend Joshua Holz, who playfully harasses his friend with the phrase as a way to troll his friends’ outfit and white Vans. “Damn, Daniel,” Josh screams. “Back at it again with the white Vans!” 

Since being uploaded on Feb. 15, the original tweet has racked up 263,000 retweets and 330,000 likes.

Not surprisingly, now brands are glomming on to Daniel and his Vans because the Internet won’t let us have nice things. Axe, Zappos, Clorox and even a British football team have all deployed the phrase:

Vans also took notice and posted an inexplicable poll that’s garnered 145,000 votes:

The company hasn’t yet returned a request for comment.

More in Marketing

Mars wants to future proof impulse buys as AI is poised to take over more grocery runs

Mars readies for AI grocery agents by chasing LLM visibility and immersive stores as impulse buys shift. See what’s at stake.

TikTok Shop launches a paid premium tier for 1M of its top U.S. shoppers

TikTok Shop is offering the shopping service to more than 1 million people it has identified as its most loyal U.S. customers.

OpenAI’s new business agents give brands a free way into the conversation it’s also selling as an ad

OpenAI is giving brands a free route into ChatGPT conversations through business agents, but keeping control of the data and recommendations.