Whistleblower Edward Snowden hadn’t even finished giving his AMA-style Guardian interview before he became a meme.
Snowden is the 29-year-old who quit his cushy government job to flee the country and leak evidence of a massive NSA Internet spying program called PRISM. His personal life is quickly elevating him to mythic status. He’s a high school dropout who left a dancer girlfriend, a home in Hawaii, and a $122,000 salary to fly to Hong Kong and tell the world about government snooping.
Some Twitter users had already actually starting sharing photos of Snowden with that telltale Impact font.
A real hero : pic.twitter.com/iM289JZih1
— Anonymous Operations (@Anon_Central) June 13, 2013
#Snowden saw something, and said something… #NSA pic.twitter.com/UTmFizdHwP
— Christopher Cantwell (@voteforcantwell) June 11, 2013
But the real magic started when Snowden gave an answer to allegations that he’d gone to Hong Kong because he’d become a spy for China: “if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.”
Snowden and a phoenix? Close enough. #madphotoshopskillz pic.twitter.com/FnxdSJZ73V
— Andrea Peterson (@kansasalps) June 17, 2013
OK OK #gameofsnowden pic.twitter.com/dL6ISDdgLg
— OS XI darth™ (@darth) June 17, 2013
#phoenix #snowden pic.twitter.com/rnCcTmOoon
— ¡socratic! (@socratic) June 17, 2013
