The Story of 241543903- A Widespread Meme

241543903

241543903 also known as “Heads in Freezers” is a numerical phrase associated with a photo meme in which people take pictures of themselves with their heads in the freezer and share them online. A high level of search engine optimization can be easily achieved by labelling a series of image files with a secretive number. As a result, typing “241543903” into image search engines such as Google Images yields pages and pages of images of people’s heads in freezers.

Source

David Horvitz, a New York-based creator known for his often eccentric DIY instructional projects, posted a picture of a head in a freezer titled “241543903” via his Flickr account San Pedro  on April 6th, 2009. On April 10th, the exact numeric pattern “241543903” came across in a Tumbler post with the followership teaching for readers.

Later, in a conversation with Urlesque in the month of December 2010, Horvitz clarified that he got the idea after indicating to his sick friend Mylinh that she try freezing her head. The number “241543903” is a combination of his refrigerator’s serial number and the codes found on a bag of edam me and an assortment of frozen soba noodles that were both stored in the freezer.

Popularity of 241543903

On the same morning Horvitz published his “head in freezer” image, an additional Flickr user, SakeBalboa, posted a follow-up image using the same freezer on April 6th.On April 23rd, a single-topic blog committed to “Heads in Freezer” was assigned under the domain 241543903.com a few weeks later. The site’s main page attributes the headline “Experiencing a MEME in the Making.”

By January 2010, there were hundreds of pictures filed under the tag “241543903” on Flickr, which ultimately spread to other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. The meme existed as pointed out in Horvitz’s book of teachings, Everything That Can Happen in a Day, published by Random House in November 2010.

Gained  popularity in other countries

The Flickr tag “241543903” quickly became extremely popular, with large followings in both Japan and Brazil. Urlesque’s interview: Horvitz and his Brazilian friend share credit for “241543903’s” international success. He shared the instructions on Flickr and with local teenagers.

When the identical instruction was published on Tumblr in December 2010, it acquired the most engagement. In just a few days, this post obtained over 2,000 likes, reblogs, and more than 430 reblogs.

There is an increasing number of short videos on YouTube capturing people with their heads in freezers, many of that have been displayed on 241543903.com.

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