It’s funny how life works sometimes. One minute you’re a nine-year-old kid who becomes a social media meme for giving the stink eye to a camera at Popeyes, the next, you’re a college freshman signing a name image and likeness deal with the same fast-food chain that made you famous. Thus, the full circle moment has been completed for Dieunerst Collin, who is currently a freshman at D-II Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio.
Collin went viral in 2013 for a video taken of him inside a Popeyes lobby, which subsequently became a meme that made him internet famous for giving the side-eye while holding a drink. Nearly a decade later, Dieunerst has grown up and plays on the offensive line for Lake Erie College. In 2021, Collin won a State championship with East Orange Campus High School in New Jersey.
This is what you call a feel-good moment for this kid, who wasn’t searching endlessly for internet clout like so many people on social media today. The 6-foot-1, 330-pound college freshman was a seemingly unwilling participant in an internet video in his youth that blew up and made him the online face of Popeyes chicken. He’s already better than Jerry Rice.
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Collin scored this NIL deal due mainly to the same video/meme from his childhood and fan support. That is what the American dream is all about. The fact that Collin plays D-II football and acquired this deal is icing on the cake. The terms of the agreement are undisclosed at the moment, but it’s good to see a kid come out on top of a situation he had no control over.
