21. Basil Marceaux
Image courtesy of knowyourmeme.com
Basil Marceaux woke up one day and decided, hey - I should be governor of Tennessee! But he was sorely mistaken - why, he wasn't even fit to be governor of Kentucky. However, his rousingly incoherent television debut marked him for internet stardom. He made his own channel on YouTube, sold way more merchandise than you would believe, and even started selling Christmas songs off his website (which once had been filled with insane ramblings). In 1992? He'd be a neighborhood kook. In 2010, with the internet behind him? National star. Still not governor, though. Not even close.
22. Andrew Meyer
Image courtesy of MSNBC
Andrew Meyer went to a University of Florida forum with John Kerry in fall 2007 and asked some possibly obnoxious questions in a possibly obnoxious manner. He was summarily brutalized by police and arrested. The inherent irony of his phrase, "Don't tase me, bro!" landed it on plenty of T-shirts, and it can still bring a chuckle around the web - despite the somewhat haunting circumstances of its coinage.
23. Brandon Kuzma
Image courtesy of YouTube
Brandon Kuzma was really super excited to get a Nintendo 64 for Christmas in 1998. Like, really excited. His sister Rachel wasn't too sedate, either. His Nintendo 64-induced ecstasy has appeared on various TV shows, a BMW commercial, and in addition to inspiring some popular YouTube remixes, it created a cottage industry on YTMND.com Brandon is now an avid video editor and skateboarder, so nuts to all the people say that video games make you into a lazy couch potato. I would've been lazy with or without video games, thankyouverymuch.
24. Denny Hazen
Image courtesy of DennyBlaze.com
Denny "Blaze" was the recipient of time-release internet fame. In 2006, an MTV employee found and posted a demo video cassette that Denny recorded in the late 1980s entitled "Average Homeboy". The Cleveland native sought to make rap music that was more relatable to middle class white guys, by explaining that he didn't live in a box or write million dollar checks ($1,790,280 in 2009 dollars). His rapping skills and amateur recording technology have both greatly improved, and Denny now sells his music via his website. You'll be blazed.
25. Latarian Milton
Image courtesy of YouTube
Milton is the seventh and final member of our list whose fame started on local news. In what qualifies as "light fare" by if-it-bleeds-it-leads local news standards, WPBF in South Florida reported on seven year-old Latarian's joyride in his grandmother's SUV. "It's fun to do bad things," the pudgy boy explained. "I wanted to do hood rat stuff for my friends." A few months later he was hospitalized with mental health concerns after he battered his grandmother at a Walmart, but he appeared to be behaving somewhat better when he appeared on Tosh.0 in 2010. On a scale of 1-10, he describes driving a car as "cool".