What happened to Success Kid almost two decades after he found viral fame at 11 months old
Sam Griner was 11 months old when his mother photographed him on a beach in 2007, just as he was about to eat a handful of sand.
The picture would go on to become the Success Kid meme, one of the biggest memes on the internet.
Sam and his parents, Laney and Justin Griner, recounted the story in a BuzzFeed video published in June 2025.
Laney said she had just bought a new camera and wanted to take pictures of her baby and family.
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She posted the photo to her Flickr account the same day and it picked up about 300 likes on the first day, before she kind of forgot about it.
Within a year, however, she began to see the picture appearing online, with edits made to it.
In the video, Sam said he usually spends his time making art and listening to music, and that he got his interest in art from his father.
But he does not want to be known only for the meme. "Interests change and your mindset and your body changes a lot, and you don't just wanna be known as Success Kid," he said.
The image went on to appear in advertising, a Super Bowl commercial, Obama's White House and newspapers around the world. Sam said he has mixed feelings about growing up as a famous baby, and that fans have asked him to 'do the pose' or what sand tasted like.
How did the Success Kid meme get its name?
One of the first versions she saw showed a photoshopped child in the background with a destroyed sand castle and the caption "I hate sandcastles."
The family said they had no idea what memes were, and that those that did exist usually made fun of somebody or had negative connotations. "I realized at that point, there was no getting this picture back. The internet had it," Laney said.
About a year after that, she saw the picture used for the first time with a green and blue background and the title Success Kid.
Laney said the name felt especially fitting because Sam was born prematurely and needed brain surgery at six weeks old.
"I felt like that was the most appropriate title for him and it was given to him by the internet," she said.
Did the Success Kid meme help Sam Griner's father?
The family later faced a health crisis.
Sam's father, Justin, was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and was on dialysis for six years, but said he could not qualify for a transplant because of the cost of the anti-rejection drugs.
Justin said he did not want to mention Success Kid at first, but after he posted about the fundraiser on Twitter and some publications retweeted it, the GoFundMe passed its goal within the first week.
The family said nurses and doctors use the meme to get through the day. "I'm very happy that people who save others lives is using my picture when I was doing nothing but eating sand," Sam said.
Looking ahead, Sam said he hopes to one day create something that inspires people just as much as Success Kid does.
Topics: Social Media, US News, Life
Thomas Bamford