# Manchester New Year's Eve Photo The Manchester New Year's Eve Photo is a viral news photograph shot by Joel Goodman on December 31, 2015 that captured a chaotic Well Street scene, complete with a man in blue reclining in the road clutching a beer. After a BBC producer tweeted it on January 1, 2016 comparing it to a beautiful painting, Twitter users noticed its composition matched the Golden Ratio and turned it into one of the defining Photoshop battles of 2016. ## Origin On January 1, 2016, the Manchester Evening News published a 31-photo gallery titled "New Years Eve 2016 – party, party, party," documenting the previous night's celebrations across the city[5]. The 20th photograph, credited to staff photographer Joel Goodman and captioned "Police hold on to a man while another lies in the road," showed the now-famous scrum on Well Street[5]. Later that same day, BBC senior news producer Roland Hughes plucked the image out of the gallery and posted it to Twitter with the line, "So much going on this pic of New Year in Manchester by the Evening News. Like a beautiful painting."[3] Hughes credited the newspaper in the tweet, which he later said was his default assumption for a post he expected almost no one to read[3]. - **Platform:** Manchester Evening News (source photo) / Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Joel Goodman (photographer); Roland Hughes (viral tweet) - **Date:** 2016 ## Overview The photo shows a Well Street scene in central Manchester on New Year's Eve: police wrestling a young man in the foreground, a woman in a red dress reaching toward him, a man in blue splayed across the road with his shirt riding up while he keeps a firm grip on a beer bottle, and a cluster of youngsters watching in the background outside a Greggs bakery and a Superdry store[3]. The picture went viral not for the drunkenness on display, but for how oddly composed it looked, a chaotic street tableau that seemed to obey the same balance rules as a Renaissance painting[1]. The meme format that grew out of it works two ways. The first is compositional: users overlaid the Fibonacci spiral on the image to argue that the golden ratio really did line up with the action[1]. The second is edit-based: the man in blue, arm outstretched with beer in hand and a serene look on his face, was cut out and dropped into famous paintings, mimicking classical religious poses[2]. He most often shows up as God in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, but also lounges by the Seine in Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnières and drifts through watercolor and fresco versions of the whole street scene[1]. The joke keeps working because the swap barely needs editing, his pose already reads as classical. ## How It Spread Hughes' post picked up momentum within minutes, first with a Dutch follower in the Netherlands before jumping across the Channel to UK audiences later that afternoon[3]. By January 5, 2016, the tweet had been retweeted more than 25,600 times and favorited over 29,600 times[5]. Twitter user @GroenMNG replied with an overlay showing the photo's composition matching the Fibonacci spiral, the same mathematical rule used by Leonardo da Vinci in works like The Last Supper and The Annunciation[6]. That reply alone gathered over 860 retweets and 1,000 favorites, and it gave the joke the art-history spine that pushed it into serious virality[5]. Redditors piled on the same day. The photo landed on r/pics (2,399 points, 89% upvoted), r/AccidentalRenaissance (497 points, 91% upvoted), and r/photoshopbattles (187 points, 93% upvoted, 48 replies)[5]. Mainstream press picked it up almost as fast. The Guardian ran it under the headline "'Like a beautiful painting': image of New Year's mayhem in Manchester goes viral"[1]. The Daily Mail described it as a "tableaux of drunkenness" and cataloged the Photoshop edits[2]. The Independent tracked down Hannah Kirby, the woman in the red dress, who identified the two men on the ground and clarified that the man in blue "wasn't casually chilling and reaching for his beer" but had just been knocked over during a fight with police[4]. Kirby said the man the officers were holding "didn't get arrested; he was fine in the end" and that she only learned she was in the image when her father called[4]. Coverage kept spreading through international outlets, including Le Monde and reports in France, Australia, and New Zealand, and Twitter picked the image as its global "Moment" for that Friday[3]. Hughes wrote a first-person BBC blog post outlining what he called the five stages of unexpectedly going viral, apologizing to Goodman for accidentally routing the world's attention his way[3]. Greater Manchester Police weighed in with a wry tweet calling the scene "just a normal night for cops, captured brilliantly"[4]. ## How to Use The template usually centers on the man in blue and his outstretched, beer-clutching arm. A common convention is to cut him out and drop him into a Renaissance painting, most often as God reaching for Adam in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam[2]. Others place him into other classical works like Seurat's Bathers at Asnières, or run the full street scene through a watercolor filter such as the Waterlogue app to get an oil-painting look[1]. A separate style leaves the photo alone and just overlays the Fibonacci golden-ratio spiral, using the image as a straight-faced example of accidental Renaissance composition[1]. ## Cultural Impact The image is often held up as a defining British viral moment of 2016 and a foundational post for the r/AccidentalRenaissance style of joke, where mundane photos get read as classical art through their composition[1]. It brought new attention to the way the golden ratio is used to argue for beauty in unexpected places, a topic covered in art writing about Da Vinci and other masters[6]. It also gave photographer Joel Goodman a global byline overnight and pushed a routine city-page slideshow into international news coverage[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Manchester New Year's Eve Photo? It is a news photograph taken by Joel Goodman on New Year's Eve 2015 in central Manchester that went viral in January 2016 for its accidentally painting-like composition, spawning a wave of Photoshop edits that placed its subjects into famous artworks[1]. ### Where did Manchester New Year's Eve Photo come from? It first appeared in a 31-photo slideshow on the Manchester Evening News website on January 1, 2016, then went viral after BBC producer Roland Hughes tweeted it that same day with the caption 'Like a beautiful painting'[3]. ### What does Manchester New Year's Eve Photo mean? The image is treated as an example of accidental Renaissance composition, showing how a chaotic drunken street scene can obey the golden ratio and read like a classical painting[1]. ### How do you use Manchester New Year's Eve Photo? People usually crop the man in blue with his outstretched beer arm and drop him into famous paintings like Michelangelo's Creation of Adam or Seurat's Bathers at Asnières, or overlay the full scene with a Fibonacci spiral[2]. ### Is Manchester New Year's Eve Photo still popular? It is a classic viral image regularly cited when writers discuss accidental Renaissance art and the golden ratio online, though the peak Photoshop-edit activity happened in the first week of January 2016[3]. ### Who took the Manchester New Year's Eve Photo? Freelance news photographer Joel Goodman shot it for the Manchester Evening News during the city's New Year's Eve celebrations[1]. ### Who is the woman in the red dress? The Independent identified her as Hannah Kirby, who knew both men in the middle of the scene and said she only learned she was in the viral image when her father called her[4]. ### What is the story with the man in blue holding the beer? According to Hannah Kirby, he had just been knocked over during a fight with police and another man, but managed to save his bottle of beer as he fell[4]. ### How viral did the original tweet get? By January 5, 2016, Roland Hughes' tweet of the photo had been retweeted more than 25,600 times and favorited over 29,600 times[5]. ### Why is the photo linked to the Golden Ratio? Twitter user @GroenMNG posted an overlay showing that the composition matched the Fibonacci spiral, the same golden-ratio device used by artists like Leonardo da Vinci for balanced compositions[6]. ### Where was the photo taken? It was shot on Well Street in central Manchester, England, with a Greggs bakery and a Superdry store visible in the background[2]. ### Did Greater Manchester Police comment on the photo? Yes, the force tweeted that while the picture had gone viral, it was 'just a normal night for cops, captured brilliantly'[4]. ## References 1. [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/03/like-a-beautiful-painting-image-of-new-years-mayhem-in-manchester-goes-viral]() 2. [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3381257/The-picture-sums-Manchester-New-Year-s-Eve.html]() 3. [https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35214873]() 4. [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/story-behind-manchester-new-year-s-eve-photograph-likened-renaissance-painting-a6795321.html]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/manchester-new-years-photo]() 6. [https://www.goldennumber.net/art-composition-design/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/manchester-new-years-eve-photo Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library