I'm really curious to know how it would have evolved if it was a picture of a girl.
Wow, so someone took a total creepshot of him and posted it on Tumblr, then some girl in England tweets it, and then he's on Ellen?
People, it's a creepshot. No consent. Creepy. Ugh.
There might be better examples but I immediately thought of Allison Stokke (the pole vaulter).
Is there some kind of distinction between fame and recognizability? I wouldn't consider Alex from Target famous, but he isn't exactly a stranger. I think we need to carve out more definitions for fame; something more than either famous or not.
The internet is full of people with no apparent life. Think of all the people here on HN who are desperate for their startup to get noticed somehow and here is someone who did nothing but got nearly a million followers. What a strange world we live in.
They're teenagers. They're not supposed to have a "life" yet.