Arts, Culture and Sport
‘Sceptical Third World Child’ meme reignites debate on internet
An image depicting a cynical looking boy standing next to a woman giving her ‘the mother of all side-eyes’ has set tongues wagging on the internet on the boy’s identity and meanings associated with the picture
An iconic picture dubbed the “Sceptical Third World Child” is undoubtedly one of the world famous and most widely shared memes and BBC Trending has sought to explore the identity of the boy and meanings associated with the image.
The picture has been unwittingly edited and shared on various social media platforms.
In the picture, the unidentified boy is, “wearing dirty clothes and a wry expression, giving the mother of all side-eyes to a woman squatting next to him in the dirt,” whom the BBC identified as Heena Pranav, a 28-year-old doctor who lives in Chicago.
Famine has been conventionally associated with Africa, and portrayed visually through stereotypes Photo: Imaging-famine
The image was taken in 2012 when Pranav was a medical student and she had travelled to Gulu, Uganda, on a project where she met the boy at a local market and guessed he was about two or three years old.
“I was with a group of other medical students at the time, we were walking around and I saw this little boy, he seemed really sweet,” Pranav said.
“His mom was nearby working in the market. I went up to him to play with him and say ‘hi’… he was the most animated child I’ve ever met.”
The boy reportedly didn’t speak English and his encounter with Pranav was captured on camera by another member of the group and shared on Reddit. It eventually went viral making the boy one of the most recognisable faces on the internet.
Source: BBC Trending
