McKayla Maroney, a member of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team, proved that fame goes beyond the London Games as a photo of her went viral this week.
It was predicted that the 16-year-old would likely become the next gold medalist for vault during the event competition on Sunday, when she surprisingly slipped and fell during her second attempt. She achieved the silver medal, but as she stood on the podium, the camera caught her pouting, giving the impression that she was unimpressed.
This image inspired 28-year-old Gavin Alaoen, a digital designer from New York, to create the “mckayla is not impressed” Tumblr page, which features Maroney’s pout superimposed on various images from history to politics to entertainment and more.
“It’s just a two-or-three-week kind of thing,” Alaoen was quoted as saying. “It’s a hot topic right now. And then it’s onto the next one.”
The Tumblr page allows viewers to submit their own photos and new photos are being added all the time.
After viewing the Tumblr herself, Maroney acknowledged that she might have actually been a little impressed.
“This Tumblr is kinda funny, made me laugh,” she wrote on Twitter.
The world seems to be getting a lot of enjoyment out of Maroney’s disappointment. In a Today show interview on Thursday, she explained that it wasn’t really the silver medal that had left her with a less-than-impressed look on her face.
“I was just disappointed in what happened and how I performed,” she told NBC. “I really wanted to be able to hit both of my vaults, but I ended up falling on my second one. I was just disappointed in myself, not the silver medal. It’s amazing to even be here and be on this team and compete for USA so that definitely wasn’t something I was disappointed about.”
The Tumblr account has already accumulated over 1,000 followers since its inception.
