Popeyes Kid — Young Black boy in yellow shirt holding a cup at Popeyes with wide-eyed surprised expression next to a woman

Popeyes Kid

2013reaction imageclassic

Published October 8, 2026

In August 2013, a man filmed nine-year-old Dieunerst Collin at a Popeyes and joked he looked like Vine star Terio, catching the boy's confused side-eye on camera. The clip racked up over 19 million Vine loops, and Collin's awkward glance became one of the most-used reaction GIFs of the 2010s before an unlikely redemption arc landed him an NIL deal with Popeyes a decade later.

reaction memes vine memes child virality memes gif memes accidental fame memes

Overview

Popeyes Kid, also known as Dieunerst Collin or Terio at Popeyes, works as a reaction image built around one specific beat: a kid being told, on camera, that he looks like someone else, and silently clocking the person filming him. The joke is less about what the man says and more about Collin's slow, suspicious glance back at the lens3. That five-second emotional arc, confused, judged, and done with the whole situation, is why it became a go-to reaction.

Online, people clip the moment into two-frame image macros or looping GIFs and pair it with captions about running into someone you'd rather avoid, reading a dumb comment, or catching a partner doing something embarrassing1. A June 2014 r/reactiongifs post captioned the GIF "MRW my wife sees my comments on gonewild," which is a decent example of the standard setup, awkward exposure met with a dead-eyed stare7. The format also gets stretched into absurdist history memes, like a 2016 Instagram macro reading "When the Japanese heard the U.S. was testing nuclear bombs after attacking Pearl Harbor"8.

The side-eye is the whole payload, which is why it has lasted long past the Vine shutdown. It is one of those reaction images that reads instantly without context, even to people who have never heard of Terio2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Vine (origin) / Twitter and Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
TheRealSnoopy
Date
2013

The original clip was posted to Vine on August 21, 2013, by user TheRealSnoopy under the title "Terio At Popeyes"5. In the video, filmed inside a Popeyes next to a pair of trash bins, a man off-camera says, "Yo, this nigga Terio at Popeyes," comparing nine-year-old Dieunerst Collin to the Vine dancing celebrity Terio, who had blown up that same month3. Collin, who did not know the man and had nothing to do with Terio, responds with a series of long, uncomfortable side-eye glances. The Vine racked up more than 19 million loops, 670,000 likes and 591,000 revines3. Terio himself was a separate Georgia kid named by Complex that August as the breakout star of Vine's summer, which is the comparison the Popeyes customer was leaning on2.

Collin only figured out weeks later that the viral clip was him. He later told Sports Illustrated he "felt sad about it" at first and took being called Terio in public as bullying, saying he "cried a little bit" before coming to accept the meme over the years1.

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How It Spread

The meme traveled fast off Vine. On August 22, 2013, the day after the original post, Twitter user @Drummerboy_015 shared a two-frame image macro of the scene captioned "When I see my teacher at a store," which is one of the earliest documented reaction-image uses6. By June 5, 2014, a looping GIF version was pulling traction on r/reactiongifs, and the format kept circulating long after Vine shut down in 20177. In February 2019, a confused Redditor in r/OutOfTheLoop had to ask what the Terio at Popeyes bit even was, which is itself a decent proxy for how far it had traveled past its original context9.

The second life came through sports. On December 5, 2021, Collin's East Orange High School football team won the New Jersey Group 5 state championship in a triple-overtime win1. Twitter account @Jerseystar973 posted a side-by-side of the Popeyes still next to Collin holding the trophy, which pulled over 135,000 likes and 18,000 retweets within two days10. Collin posted his own championship tweet the same night11. Sports Illustrated, Total Pro Sports and HITC all covered the "meme kid grew up" angle1.

The arc closed out in January 2023. On January 8, Collin, by then a college football player eligible for Name, Image and Likeness deals, posted on Twitter and Instagram asking fans to tag Popeyes and help him "get a bag"4. Three days later, Popeyes signed him. On January 13, the chain posted a "from memes to dreams" Instagram video of Collin reading a letter to his younger self, which was picked up again by sports and marketing outlets3.

Timeline

2014-06-05

A looping GIF version of the clip spreads on r/reactiongifs with a gonewild-related caption.

2016-03-18

Instagram user @dallaswhatsgood posts an absurdist Pearl Harbor history-meme using the format.

2019-02-20

A user in r/OutOfTheLoop asks for an explanation of the Terio at Popeyes joke years after Vine shut down.

2021-12-05

Collin's East Orange High School team wins the New Jersey state football championship in triple overtime, prompting viral 'meme kid grew up' coverage.

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How to Use This Meme

The standard template is a two-panel or GIF format showing the setup, usually a caption describing an awkward realization or accusation, followed by Collin's side-eye as the punchline. People typically pair it with "When..." or "MRW" (my reaction when) captions covering situations like getting caught, being judged, or hearing a bad take7. The GIF version works well as a standalone reply with no caption, since the glance alone reads as skeptical disapproval.

Frequently Asked Questions