The meme was born in 2007 after Laney Griner posted a photo of her son Sam trying to eat sand on Flickr. The photo first became famous as a meme captioned "I Hate Sandcastles," suggesting that the boy had just destroyed another child's sandcastle. Apparently, Laney Griner didn't like the context of the meme as she felt it made her son look like a bully, when in fact, he loved sandcastles. But then the "Success Kid" meme was created and the woman embraced it. Since then, the photo has been featured in various ads, appeared on Hot Topic shirts, Xbox screensavers, and many more.