Only a few spots left to join us for the Digiday Publishing Summit

Join us Sept. 14-16 in Miami to connect with top publishing leaders

SECURE YOUR SEAT

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

‘Inside, most of them are dumpster fires’: Confessions of a frustrated indie agency ad exec

From surprise corporate card cancellations to phantom return-to-office mandates, one former indie agency exec talks about the chaos behind the scenes.

The case for and against the ‘programmatic-ification’ of the creator economy

Creator marketing is racing toward AI ad-stack automation, but risks turning trust into inventory.

Digiday+ Research: The marketers’ 2026 guide to retail media marketing, including The Home Depot, Milani Cosmetics and Tinuiti

As the retail media landscape continues to evolve, marketers are rethinking where they invest, how they measure success and which retail media networks deserve a larger share of budget.