Blinking White Guy

The Blinking White Guy meme is a GIF of Drew Scanlon — a video producer at gaming site Giant Bomb — doing a slow, bewildered double-take blink during a December 6, 2013, livestream. His cohost Jeff Gerstmann said “farming with my hoe” while playing Starbound, and Scanlon’s involuntary reaction became the internet’s definitive expression of “did I just hear that right?” The GIF sat dormant for over three years before exploding on Twitter in February 2017, and it’s been the go-to disbelief reaction ever since.

The Accidental Origin: A Hoe, a Blink, and Three Years of Nothing

Giant Bomb’s “Unprofessional Fridays” was exactly what it sounded like — a loose, end-of-week stream where the staff played random games and said whatever came to mind. On December 6, 2013, Jeff Gerstmann was playing Starbound and dropped the line “farming with my hoe” without a second thought. Drew Scanlon, sitting to his right editing something on his laptop, caught the double meaning and delivered a perfect slow blink — the kind of reaction you do when your brain needs a second to process what just happened.

Nobody clipped it. Nobody cared. The moment passed in real time and the stream kept rolling. For the next year and a half, the footage sat buried in a multi-hour archive on Giant Bomb’s website.

The NeoGAF Discovery: July 2015

The earliest known use of the GIF as a reaction was on July 27, 2015, when a NeoGAF user named Tokubetsu posted it in response to a comic about Kanye West and Future. It was the perfect use case — someone said something absurd, and the blink captured that exact “hold on, what?” feeling better than words ever could. But NeoGAF was a relatively insular community, and the GIF didn’t spread far beyond that thread.

For the next 18 months, the GIF floated around in small pockets of the internet. People who stumbled on it liked it, used it in forums and group chats, but it never reached critical mass. The meme was a slow burner — which is ironic given that the GIF itself lasts about two seconds.

February 2017: Twitter Ignites

On February 5, 2017, Twitter user @eskbl posted the GIF with the caption about being in biology class and hearing the word “cells” — implying their brain immediately went somewhere else. The tweet racked up nearly 50,000 retweets. Within days, dozens of similar tweets using the blink GIF were going viral, each getting tens of thousands of engagements.

The format was dead simple: set up an expectation, then a punchline that makes you do a mental double-take — and let the GIF do the rest. It worked for everything from mundane misunderstandings to political absurdity. The GIF was versatile in a way most reaction images aren’t — it wasn’t tied to a specific emotion like anger or joy. It was pure, uncut “wait, what?”

Meanwhile, back at Giant Bomb, fans were having their own fun watching one of their guys become a meme. Threads popped up on Giant Bomb’s forums and NeoGAF discussing the phenomenon. Drew Scanlon himself took it in stride, later tweeting about it and even using the meme’s popularity to raise money for charity.

Why the Blink Works: The Anatomy of a Perfect Reaction GIF

Most reaction GIFs are loud. They’re someone screaming, or throwing something, or doing an exaggerated face. The Blinking Guy works because it’s the opposite — it’s quiet. It’s subtle. It’s the reaction you have when something is so wrong that you can’t even muster a dramatic response. You just... blink.

There’s also something about the timing. The GIF is perfectly loopable — the blink starts, completes, and you can watch it again as if he’s processing the information over and over, each time hoping it’ll make more sense. It doesn’t. He blinks again. The loop captures the feeling of being stuck in a moment of disbelief, and that universality is why it outlasted thousands of other reaction GIFs from the same era.

The setting matters too. Scanlon is clearly in a professional environment — headphones on, computer in front of him. He looks like someone who’s supposed to be working. That contrast between the serious setting and the “did that just happen?” reaction makes it relatable for anyone who’s ever been in a meeting, a class, or a Zoom call when someone says something unhinged.

Second Life: The “First Guy To” Format (August 2019)

Just when the original GIF format was becoming background noise — still widely used but no longer novel — the meme got a second wind in August 2019 with the “First Guy To” format. This multi-panel version uses individual frames from the blink to create a mini-narrative: the first frame shows the guy before the blink (the “first guy to” do something), and the subsequent frames show the realization/reaction.

Examples ranged from “first guy to eat an egg” to “first guy to hear his own echo.” The format worked because it repurposed a familiar image in a genuinely creative way — turning a two-second GIF into a three-act story.

Drew Scanlon’s Real-World Impact

In 2019, Drew Scanlon launched a charity cycling campaign called Cloth Map, riding across multiple countries to raise money for various causes. He leveraged his meme fame directly — his fundraising pages explicitly referenced being “the blinking guy” — and raised over $100,000 for organizations including the National Abortion Federation in 2022 when the meme resurged during political debates.

It’s one of the rare cases where a meme subject actively turned unwanted internet fame into something genuinely positive. Scanlon never complained about the meme, never tried to monetize it with NFTs, and never did a cringe brand deal. He just... used it to help people. Which, honestly, is the most un-internet-famous thing possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the Blinking White Guy in the meme?

The Blinking White Guy is Drew Scanlon, a video producer and editor who worked at Giant Bomb, a video game website. He was sitting in the background of a livestream on December 6, 2013, when he made the now-famous blink in reaction to a coworker’s innuendo.

When did the Blinking Guy meme go viral?

The original footage is from December 2013, but the GIF didn’t go viral until February 2017 — over three years later — when it exploded on Twitter after a tweet by @eskbl got nearly 50,000 retweets.

What caused Drew Scanlon to blink?

Jeff Gerstmann, another Giant Bomb host, casually said “farming with my hoe” while playing the game Starbound. Scanlon caught the double meaning and reacted with an involuntary slow blink that perfectly captured bewildered disbelief.

What is the “First Guy To” meme?

A multi-panel format from August 2019 that uses individual frames from the Blinking Guy GIF to tell short stories about “the first person” to experience something mundane or absurd. It gave the meme a creative second life.

Can I face-swap into the Blinking White Guy meme?

Yes — it’s one of the cleanest face-swap templates available. Drew Scanlon’s face is well-lit, front-facing, and clearly visible, making it ideal for a quick swap on MEEMES.