The meme originated in 2007, after Laney Griner uploaded a photograph of her son Sammy trying to eat sand to Flickr. The meme gained initial popularity captioned "I Hate Sandcastles", suggesting that the boy had just destroyed another child's sandcastle. Laney disliked the "I Hate Sandcastles" meme as she felt it made her son – who in fact loved sandcastles – look like a bully, but she embraced the "Success Kid" concept. She said that her son gets embarrassed by his association with the meme.