Sometimes it’s easy to take the credit for your achievements, as anybody who insists on adding a string of letters after their name will tell you. But sometimes you can never revel in the glory, perhaps because you have to remain anonymous, or some nefarious person took it for themselves. Over on the AskUK subreddit, positivelittlecorner asked this:
What’s your biggest claim to fame that nobody knows is yours? Sixteen years ago someone said ‘Compare the Meerkat’ in a meeting. Now it’s an unstoppable ad franchise, and they’re probably staring into the middle distance on the 7:42 to Slough.
All we know about them is they thought up the slogan when they cycled past the zoo. What did you come up with that everyone knows whilst you stayed anonymous?
And lots of people took to opportunity to finally have their moment in the spotlight, like these…
1.
‘Several years ago, about 2011 I think, I was a VIP guest at the McDonald’s World Conference in Florida. I was asked if I drank coffee, and upon replying ‘Yes, a lot of it’, I was invited to be part of a panel of testers chosen from all the delegates to choose which of a range of different coffees would become their new worldwide choice.
Coffee at McDonald’s at that time was really shit and they new they had to up their game to compete with the up and coming high street coffee shops. Over the three days, I tried several different blends along with my fellow testers and we whittled all the choices down to just three main contenders.
On the last day of the convention, Jim Skinner, the CEO, said that as their VIP guest, I was to have the honour of choosing which of the three finalists would be the new McDonald’s coffee blend to be launched in all their stores worldwide. I must admit it gives me a nice feeling whenever I have a McDonald’s coffee to think that everyone in the world is drinking this coffee because of me.’
–NeddTwo
2.
‘I’m convinced I was the first person to post a tweet pointing out that Kelly Rowland was writing a text in Microsoft Excel in the video for Dilemma.’
–hoverside
3.
‘As a boy I did the animated doodles in Queen’s A Kind of Magic video. I was the unpaid intern and everyone went to the pub for a boozy lunch and they just said ‘draw sparkly magic stuff on this while we are gone’. Asking for more guidance I was told ‘you’ll be fine’. All the cartoon characters were done by someone good. All the other crap squiggly lines and stuff everywhere is a 16 year-old-boy panicking.’
–Angstromium
4.
‘I used to work for a company that produced gaming videos. People commentating over gameplay, very very popular company in 2008-2012, one of the most viewed YouTube channels at the time. I would hunt for new creators to sign to the channel, so they would produce content for it and they could get paid for playing computer games.
I signed one guy because he was quite funny and seemed to have the potential to be quite a talent. Long story short he’s a judge on Britain’s Got Talent now and I am probably responsible through the butterfly effect of unleashing Prime Energy drink on the world.’
–Suddendeath777
5.
‘Had a lengthy chat when working in Harrogate with a secretary about teabags and how useful it would be to have a coffee version of them in wide circulation.
Turned out that her boyfriend worked in the R&D department at Taylors of Harrogate (aka the Yorkshire Tea company) and they released coffee bags about 18 months later…’
–ilaidonedown
6.
‘I’m the reason my high school changed the rules to clarify that boys hair had to be above collar length. Now I’m bald.’
–Such_Truth_5550
7.
‘There is a small town in the former USSR which ‘exists’ because I misunderstood a transliteration issue and someone used it as a source for Wikipedia, which has since being copied elsewhere.’
–Realistic-River-1941
8.
‘I had a plank of wood on the back of my daughter’s stroller for my son to stand on when pushing it to save his little legs. Couple of years later saw an attachment with wheels like half a skateboard you could fit. A good idea I had.’
–Figgzyvan
9.
‘I took a photo of my dinner over a decade ago, it is now used on hundreds of international Wikipedia pages. I released it CC so it’s elsewhere too. Probably hundreds of millions of views of my dinner that day. I wouldn’t be surprised if people I know have seen it.’
–20127010603170562316
10.
‘A few years ago my mum went to an outdoor gig in London and one of the acts was Rick Astley. She said he had done a good cover of Uptown Funk and I thought it sounded interesting so I looked it up on YouTube and there were a couple of videos people had taken on their phones but nothing with more than a free few hundred views.
It was a good cover so I shared it on Reddit and within a few days it had hundreds of thousands of views and then within the next few months suddenly Rick Astley was everywhere again – doing Live Lounge and all sorts. I like to think I helped repopularise him.’
–suitablyuniquename
11.
‘Not me but my uncle was on the team who invented Viennetta ice cream.’
–Me2309
