Scumbag Steve Meme: Origin, Meaning, and Blake Boston
How Susan Boston’s circa-2006 portrait of her son Blake became a two-line image macro about the selfish friend who abuses trust.
Scumbag Steve is a two-line image macro built from a circa-2006 photo of Blake Boston. Since early 2011, people have used the fictional character as shorthand for the selfish friend who borrows your stuff, ruins the plan, and leaves you with the consequences.[1][2][3]
The character is instantly readable: a teenager in a doorway, wearing a patterned baseball cap at an angle, a fur-trimmed coat, and a hard stare. The top line usually presents an ordinary social situation. The bottom line reveals the inconsiderate thing “Steve” does next.
That character is not a biography of Blake Boston. The captions describe an archetype invented by internet users, not the person in the photograph.
Lead image: Blake Boston in the photograph that became Scumbag Steve, paired with a later identity photo. His mother, Susan Boston, took the source portrait around 2006. Image hosted with Know Your Meme’s 2011 interview and used here only for attributed editorial identification. No copyright, likeness, publicity, trademark, merchandise, or endorsement rights are claimed.
Where did the Scumbag Steve photo come from?
Susan Boston took the photograph when Blake was 16. In a 2011 interview, Blake said his mother was taking a photography class, made pictures for his music project, and put them on MySpace. He remembered looking toward her while she continued taking photos.[1]
Blake and Susan gave a fuller account to WBUR in 2021. Susan was experimenting with photography and wanted promotional shots for her son’s music. She caught him in the doorway as he was trying to leave the house, then added the pictures to MySpace.[3]
The image sat there for years. Its route from that old page into meme circulation remains unresolved. Blake and Susan have said they do not know who pulled it from MySpace.[3]
When did Scumbag Steve become a meme?
The public breakout came in early 2011. An archived copy of the Reddit thread “I hated this dude” says it was submitted on January 20. Know Your Meme records January 21 as the date the compilation reached Reddit’s front page. The image also moved through 4chan and image-macro sites, where users attached short complaints about a familiar type of bad friend.[2][3][8]
January 20 is the documented submission date, while January 21 is the front-page milestone in Know Your Meme’s archive. Neither date proves the first edit. The portrait existed before the meme, and its path between MySpace, 4chan, and Reddit is incomplete.
The name “Scumbag Steve” was invented by internet users. Blake Boston is his real name.
How does the format work?
A standard Scumbag Steve caption has two beats:
- The top line presents a favor, promise, or ordinary social situation.
- The bottom line reveals a selfish, hypocritical, or destructive response.
The strongest versions describe small betrayals that feel specific enough to recall someone the reader knows. The fixed portrait supplies the character; each caption supplies a new offense.
That structure placed Scumbag Steve inside the early-2010s Advice Animal tradition. These macros used one recurring face or character to represent a recognizable behavior. Scumbag Steve represented the person who turns trust into inconvenience.[2][4]
What changed as people remixed it?
The hat became a symbol on its own. Users cut out the sideways patterned cap and placed it on other people, characters, and objects. Once the “Scumbag Hat” appeared, the accusation could work without Blake’s full portrait.[2]
Other mutations shifted the joke away from a single bad friend. Scumbag Brain applied the same logic to memory failures and self-sabotage. News and political edits used the hat to label a public figure’s behavior as selfish or hypocritical. The format became a portable grammar: setup, betrayal, crooked hat.
What happened to Blake Boston?
Boston did not choose the character, and his first reaction was anger and confusion. His 2011 interview describes strangers contacting him and his family while some people treated fictional captions as claims about his real life.[1]
Later interviews show a more complicated relationship. Boston appeared at internet-culture events, made music under the Scumbag Steve name, and sometimes used the character on his own terms. That did not erase the earlier harassment or pressure on his family.[3][5][6][7]
WBUR’s reporting with Blake and Susan keeps the distinction clear. A meme can turn a face into shared cultural material while the person in the frame still has a family, history, and boundaries. The captions are fictional. Treating them as evidence about Blake Boston misses the joke and harms the person behind it.[3]
Why did Scumbag Steve last?
The format compresses a whole social story into one image and two lines. Readers recognize the setup, predict that trust will be broken, and wait for the exact way it happens. The character can describe a roommate, classmate, coworker, or anyone who takes advantage of a small kindness.
Its visual shorthand is equally efficient. The doorway portrait establishes a persona before the caption begins, and the hat can carry that persona into a derivative image. Scumbag Steve survived beyond the peak of Advice Animals because “that selfish guy” remains easy to recognize and remix.
Editorial use and rights
Cultural recognizability is not commercial permission. Susan Boston’s photograph, Blake Boston’s likeness and persona, the Boston Red Sox and New Era hat design and marks, the Scumbag Steve name, and later composites or derivatives may involve separate rights. The lead image is reproduced only to identify and discuss the meme. No relevant live MemeMeet product was verified, so this article contains no Scumbag Steve product link. Merchandise or promotional use would require separate copyright, likeness, publicity, trademark, and endorsement review.
More documented origin guides are collected in MemeMeet’s Meme Culture archive.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Circa 2006 | Susan Boston photographs 16-year-old Blake Boston for pictures connected to his music and posts them to MySpace. |
| January 20–21, 2011 | The archived Reddit thread is dated January 20; Know Your Meme records January 21 as the date it reached the front page. |
| February 8, 2011 | Know Your Meme publishes a first-person interview with Boston about the photograph and sudden attention. |
| 2011 | The format spreads through Reddit, 4chan, and image-macro sites; the Scumbag Hat becomes a reusable derivative. |
| 2012–2013 | Boston gives further interviews and uses the character in music and public appearances. |
| 2021 | Boston and Susan revisit the photograph, the meme’s personal cost, and his later acceptance in tenth-anniversary interviews. |
Frequently asked questions
Who is Scumbag Steve in real life?
The person in the source photograph is Blake Boston. “Scumbag Steve” is a fictional name and character created by internet users.
Who took the Scumbag Steve photo?
Blake Boston’s mother, Susan Boston, took it around 2006 while she was studying photography and making pictures connected to his music.
When did the Scumbag Steve meme start?
It broke out in early 2011. The archived Reddit compilation was submitted on January 20, and Know Your Meme records its front-page milestone on January 21. The exact first edit and the path from MySpace remain unknown.
What does the Scumbag Steve meme mean?
It represents a selfish or inconsiderate person who abuses trust. The top caption sets up a normal situation, and the bottom caption reveals the betrayal or inconvenience.
Is the Scumbag Steve character an accurate description of Blake Boston?
No. The captions describe a fictional archetype. Interviews with Boston and his family document the harm caused when strangers treated the character as his real identity.
Sources
- “Q&A with Blake Boston (Scumbag Steve),” Know Your Meme, February 8, 2011
- “Scumbag Steve,” Know Your Meme archive
- “MEMES, Part 2: Scumbag Steve,” WBUR / Endless Thread, October 1, 2021
- “Millis man savors his time as an Internet (punching) bag,” The Boston Globe, November 24, 2012
- “What Happens When You’re Made a Meme,” Digiday, March 18, 2013
- “Scumbag Steve: How the Internet Meme Became a Rapper,” Mashable, May 3, 2012
- “Blake Boston Revisits Becoming ‘Scumbag Steve,’” Know Your Meme, March 12, 2021
- “I hated this dude,” archived Reddit / r/funny thread, January 20, 2011