“I still go lớn high school, I’m still on the swim team, I’m still swimming. I haven’t dropped out or anything,” Daniel Lara says
Daniel Lara (right) và Josh Holz (left) say the "Damn, Daniel" đoạn phim that became a viral sensation was a "total fluke."
Sami Drasin/Trunk Archive
This spring, Riverside Polytechnic High School sophomore Daniel Lara plans to lớn attkết thúc prom with his girlfriend of two months. He attended last year as a freshman, but that was only after an invitation to Gigi Hadid failed. For the most part, Lara is a pretty normal 15-year-old: He competes for his school’s swyên ổn team, likes the rap group Migos and hanging with friends. He says he plans lớn go to lớn prom every year of high school – a feat that sounds ambitious, but Lara’s the most famous current high school student in Riverside, California. It shouldn’t be that hard khổng lồ pull off.
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In February 2016, Lara’s good friover, Josh Holz, turned his camera phone khổng lồ pan Lara’s outfit and posted to lớn Snapchat. The minimal commentary caught a foothold in the internet’s attention, reaching viral meme status quickly – totalling 45 million views in a matter of days. It was just some 14-year-old kid và his smart sartorial choices: one day in blue Nikes and a xanh windbreaker, a navy hoodie and chảy Dickies và a Trắng T-shirt. The next Adidas traông xã pants and a tie-dye hoodie. Eventually, the famous White Vans come into lớn play, a disembodied voice says, “Damn Daniel, baông xã at it with the white Vans.”
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The rest is internet history.
Lara wasn’t simply some hot shot freshman rolling up lớn prom, he was Damn, Daniel, a xinh tươi teen meme in those iconic skater sneakers getting mobbed by fans with television appearances on deck, including an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Holz’s pseudo-fashion voice hisses across an EDM reset that racked up almost three million views. Lara & Holz, the two buddies, who first met through playing Minecraft on Xbox in middle school, also appeared in a Weezer music Clip và were referenced by literally everyone, including Pharrell Williams. Vans gave Lara a lifetime supply of the famous canvas sneakers, he turned around & donated them lớn a hospital. His popularity managed to lớn wreak momentary havoc worldwide in the lives of Daniels everywhere, but it was all in good fun. In a second, Damn, Daniel was a teenage meme, heartthrob and celebrity.
“I never phối out to lớn make a viral đoạn phim, this was a total fluke,” Holz tells Rolling Stone. So Damn, Daniel started the way so many goofy-ass teen jokes do: just two bored kids trying lớn make each other laugh. “And some have reported that I posted my video on Vine và YouTube first, but that’s not true. The clips were from my Snapchat story. My friends kept telling me how funny they were so I decided to lớn make a compilation Clip and tweet it. That’s how it all happened. Having my video clip go viral was mind-blowing. All the things that come with it is crazy.”
Most high schoolers sans ones with Disney contracts don’t total around 127,000 Twitter followers. Perhaps most shocking of all, both Holz and Lara remain relatively levelheaded. “I’m thankful I was a teenager when it all happened – having my parents to lớn lean on, guide, & support me through it all has kept me grounded,” Holz adds.
Although Holz’s disembodied voice enjoyed a unique celebrity of its own, Lara became a living, breathing meme. He was crystallized as the face of the video series, caught in his natural state of what he calls “streetwear style.” As it turns out, memes – even when proclaimed dead by authorities such as Cosmo – never actually disappear.
“When it first happened, it was crazy,” Lara says, noting the throngs of new people at swim meets when the meme hit viral status. His Instagram follower count sky-rocketed from 1,300 and hovers around 700 thousvà today. “The pool deông xã had to lớn get shut off & stuff. It’s not like that anymore. I still get people coming up to me but it’s not to lớn the point where I need security guys.” He doesn’t get overwhelmed in public the way he used lớn, but he still indulges anyone who asks for a phokhổng lồ together.
“My life hasn’t changed all that much,” Lara admits. “I still go lớn high school, I’m still on the swyên team, I’m still swimming. I haven’t dropped out or anything.”
A chảy, easygoing, objectively attractive sầu kid, genetics already dealternative text Lara a decent dechồng – even considering the cruel politics of high school. Surely Lara’s peers don’t score more than 17,000 likes for a blurry-as-hell Instagram post, yet he retains a modest confidence. After all, Lara enjoyed the hallmark of teenage popularity pre-meme: validation from older kids. “I knew quite a few people before that,” he says. “I was a freshman but I knew a lot of upperclassmen & stuff like that.” He doesn’t bring up the older woman he took lớn prom last year again, but he doesn’t need khổng lồ. At this point, those friends have sầu since graduated and now attend college.
In a way, Lara is a modern iteration of his half-jokingly identified anh hùng, Ferris Bueller. Though, instead of ripping through Chicago in a “borrowed” 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, Lara leads a much more carefully curated existence. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a film that dropped about 15 years before he was born, captures a time Lara never experienced. Ferris’s shenanigans were so stealth in an analogue era during which you could literally blinks & miss them –as Principal Rooney did Ferris’s attendance at the Cubs game, while blowing off class. All Lara’s moves are heavily documented, in the typical modern teen protocol – across multiple social media channels – and amplified by the remnant echoes of his mạng internet celebrity.
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“The character
Ferris’s hubris, ironically mixed with a laông xã of classic asshole behavior, make hyên ổn an incredibly likable “cool guy.” He’s the guy both peers và adults respect và want to lớn be around. He’s not the guy doling out swirlies or, in a present-day sense, a healthy heaping of shade served via public social truyền thông media. Ferris is too cool to lớn flirt with the petty bullshit – & Lara relates.
“We’re similar in a lot of ways,” he says. “He sounds lượt thích the type of guy I want to lớn be hanging out with. And lượt thích, the guys I hang around with are kind of similar lớn me.”
Lara describes his group of friends as diverse, a spread from sophomores to seniors. “We’re just funny,” he said. It’s believable, too, considering the advent of Damn, Daniel. The kicker of that đoạn phim series may be arguable, but Lara’s clear discomfort while being filmed with commentary stands as the fibrous, truth core – the aspect that makes the series so relatable and endearing. As Holz approaches Lara, despite a stylish get-up, the latter typically calcified in a cross-armed position, laughing nervously.
Unlike Ferris, who had the privilege lớn focus on his role as class clown in lieu of a part-time job, Lara still works. Since going viral Lara has signed with LA Models & a number of other talent agencies. He also continues to lớn swim for his school’s competitive sầu team & occasionally travels for Damn, Daniel appearances, including a single day in Japan lớn try out reading lines.
The meme, Lara admits, forever changed dating for his young life. “Obviously it opened up a lot more, – a lot more
Not surprisingly, Lara’s nerves began lớn melt more with exposure. He moved with expert finesse by the time DeGeneres enlisted the duo lớn take over MTV Movie Awards’ red carpet for her. Lara and Holz handled the mic and slew of star-studded interview subjects with slightly more grace than your average teen, bouncing from Ice Cube khổng lồ Seth Rogen with ease. Lara has grown khổng lồ be as smooth a talker as you would expect an almost-16-year-old – confident yet always a little awkward, not exactly eloquent but definitely charming.
Lara embodies some of Ferris’s similar winking qualities, outside of the playing hooky trope. Namely, he posts on Instagram và tweets In Title Case. “Some people type
Lara and Holz hardly mirror the exact chemistry of Ferris & his best friover, Cameron “Its
The brush with fame has fused the boys more tightly in friendship, Lara says.
“Our friendship has grown ever since
Again, Lara asserts that the success of Damn, Daniel was far from calculated. He laughed off a scientific analysis of how the Clip went viral & adds, “The videos are just pure randomness. There was nothing planned in any of those videos. It was us being stupid together. I don’t know if that’s what made it go up. I don’t know if that’s what triggered it. … It’s so crazy. I never thought it would have been viral – you know, like that.”
He doesn’t have huge plans of launching a full-out catwalk modeling career, despite his 6-foot-frame, but he does want lớn “maybe shoot for some of my personal or favorite brands. That would be cool.” He’s also appeared on red carpet film premieres, but never elaborates when asked about compensation figures. Lara has a lot of fixings for a long-poised seat in the spotlight, but is that what’s in the cards – or even what he wants?
As of late, while Holz mulls over college options as a high school junior, Lara is focused on what most almost-16-year-olds fixate over: learning to lớn drive sầu.
“I have sầu a lot of friends that drive sầu so … I’m chilling in that sense,” Lara, who was gunning for a driver’s permit at the time of press, said. “Honestly, I kind of want lớn drive sầu. It would be cool for me but it’s not like I don’t have sầu … other options.
It’s true life moves pretty fast và for Lara và Holz, it can have sầu the capacity to lớn re-calibrate khổng lồ fairly moderate speeds. Though we still haven’t seen how Lara drives, so that stands open to lớn debate.