We’re all used to people going back and finding the yearbook quotes of famous people.
But only in this age of global communication could your yearbook quote make you famous almost instantly.
Megan Kelly never expected the 11 words she wrote to go with her grad photo in the Ballenas Secondary School yearbook to spread so far beyond Parksville. Social media users as far away as Central America, the U.K., Scandinavia and Russia commented on her grad quote: “Master has given Megan a high school diploma, Megan is freeeee!”
The words make a sly reference to a famous fictional child wizard — they’re based on a line from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — and they spread like a spell among fans.
In the book, Harry tricks the nasty Lucius Malfoy into giving one of Harry’s socks to Dobby, Malfoy’s house-elf slave. The act sets Dobby free, so when Malfoy orders him to come, Dobby tells him: “Master has presented Dobby with clothes! Dobby is free!”
Megan, an accomplished athlete and student who is headed for the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria in the fall, understands the power of social media, but is shocked by what happened to her yearbook quote: By Wednesday, the website imgur.com had counted more than 1.2 million views.
“Kind of scary how fast this spread,” Megan says. “Sure glad I had a good yearbook picture.”
Megan shared her quote on her Tumblr website. Faster than a Golden Snitch, it garnered 100,000 “likes” before friends started sharing it elsewhere, including the digital bulletin board Reddit, where readers voted it into the No. 8 spot on the site’s worldwide “hot” list.
All the Internet activity caught the eye of Huffington Post Canada, which made it the top story on its teen page. It drew more than 200 comments, including “Freeeee, and unemployed.”
