In each edition of web_crawlr we have exclusive original content every day. On Saturday our Video Producer Kyle Calise explores the origins and history of the most iconic memes online in his “Meme History” column. If you want to read columns like this a day before everyone else, subscribe to web_crawlr to get your daily scoop of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.
What subset of people would get famous, get tens of thousands of Instagram followers, use it to link to an empty YouTube channel, and then abandon both and disappear entirely?
Bros.
Creation and Initial Spread
On September 2nd, 2014, Lachborne Backhaz, better known by his Twitter handle @LuckyLuciano17k posted a photo of himself clad in all-pink shorts and a shirt, a gold watch, and matching brown belt and shoes. On Instagram, it was captioned, “Real men wear pink.” But more famously, on Twitter it was captioned: “You know I had to do it to ‘em.”
The comedy of this is a slow burn because on its face it’s the most aggressively normal photo ever taken—it’s a guy standing on a sidewalk—and yet the caption evokes a chad-like level of unprovoked self-assuredness.
People have a lot of questions for this young man. What’s with the weird loafers and sock tan? Why are your hands clasped that way? Who is “em” and what is “it?”—Because, no Lucky. We really don’t know.
Two years later, Lucky was mocked by a Twitter user who made him out to be some kind of snobby hip hop fan, but more importantly this is where we see him begin to be turned into a meme.
In the second half of 2016, a wide range of spoofs spread all over Tumblr recreating or re-editing the original image into new ones that featured Dr. Phil as an M&M, Lucky as Fred Flintstone, Overwatch characters, the creepy twins from The Shining, and many more.
But people also photoshopped him into photos and screenshots in a bizarre new twist on a “Where’s Waldo?” cartoon. This is where we see interest in Lucky’s meme peak, but the following year people were talking about him for an entirely different reason.
Lucky Luciano Arrest
In July of 2018, Lucky was arrested for possession of cocaine and possession of cannabis with the intent to sell. He set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for legal fees. In the description he stated that he “recently got arrested over BS.” Pretty soon, people on the internet found his mugshot and samples of the police report, uploading them to Facebook for the world to see.
Location Discovery
That same month, Twitter user @BrendanHersh made public the location of the original photo. He posted it as part of the caption to a photo where he recreated the original.
According to /r/GoogleMapsShenanigans, at one point the address was listed on Google Maps as “Where He Did it To Em,” and it was categorized as a place of worship. And in 2024, if you Google the address, you’ll find it listed as “Had to do it to ‘em.”
This is a little bit of a weird meme because it’s almost about nothing, and yet maybe its lack of specificity is why there’s interest in it from all corners of the internet.
Lucky Luciano Legacy
At the 2020 DNC, Pete Buttigieg struck this pose, which was immediately compared to Lucky’s. Although he’s never addressed it, it was certainly enough to pique the interest of memers all over the Twitterverse.
Lucky also got his own bobblehead toy which he promoted as part of his 4/20 Instagram post in 2021; American Dad featured him in an episode, and for a while, Lucky made no secret of trying to milk this for all its worth.
What exactly it is worth, however, is dubious.
Disaster Girl sold her NFT to pay for college, Moo Deng still owns every square inch of our hearts, the Hawk Tuah girl has talent representation and her own podcast. This one doesn’t neatly fit into any one particular category.
But rest assured, whatever Lucky is able to do with his fame, you know he’s gonna do it to ‘em.
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