Where Did "Hey Girl" Come From?

Things got really meta when Gosling himself got wind of the meme. As you can imagine, when you're the source of one of the Internet's favorite memes, you're going to hear about it a lot. The actor was completely in the dark about the trend (which means he doesn't Google himself; props to him for that) until he started noticing people on the street calling out to him with the meme's signature opening line. After a few dozen "hey girl" greetings from strangers, one does tend to catch on. 

Then in 2010, MTV had the genius idea to bring the meta vibes during an interview for his film Blue Valentine. They brought along a few of their favorite versions of the meme and had Gosling read them aloud, and the Internet exploded. Seriously, it went up in flames. And by "flames," we mean literally every website in existence wrote about this fantastic corner of the World Wide Web. 

Since then, there have been all sorts of RyGos spinoffs—albeit none as funny or original as Hey Girl. There's Ryan Gosling Won't Eat His Cereal, in which a Vine star superimposes serious Gosling acting scenes with a slowly approaching spoon full of cereal. 

There's Feminist Ryan Gosling, which takes the Hey Girl meme and turns it into awesome girl power mantras. Like "Hey girl, keep your laws off my body but keep your hands on it." Or "Hey girl, I stood with Wendy Davis but I'd lie down with you anywhere."

We should also mention Shakespearean Ryan Gosling, Typographer Ryan Gosling and Ryan Gosling, Disneyland, Cats, among others. (You can just use your imagination as to what those are about.) Thank you for making the Internet so wonderful, Ryan. 

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