Find a way to do something good

András Arató was born in Hungary in 1945, he studied Electric Engineering in university. He was involved in lighting technology, received several professional awards, wrote numerous publications and was even elected for the vice-president of the Hungarian Lighting Society.

I think all of you have no idea who András is, but I can tell you that all of you have seen his face before. He is so famous that unless you are not using the Internet for the past ten years, you must have seen his pictures before. Let me briefly describe the outlook of András to you. He is an old man sitting with a notebook computer in front of him, and he is holding up a coffee mug with one hand. The image of András usually contains two parts. The first one, András is looking at the computer. And in the second one, he is looking at you with an awkward smile. It seems that he is forced to smile at you. This photo looks so funny and soon people started to make fun of it. They used András’ photo to create memes, and these memes spread very quickly over the Internet through social media platforms.

At first, András was not happy when he found his photos are being used as Internet memes, because some of these memes involve really rude or disgusting jokes. People overlaid text on András’ pictures, talking about their wives leaving them, or saying their identity had been stolen and their bank account emptied. They used András’ image because it looked as if he was smiling through the pain. In fact, people were calling him “Hide the Pain Harold” over the Internet.

On one hand, András knew that it was impossible to stop people making memes with his photos. On the other hand, as his calm, smiling face become more and more popular, András also becomes a well-known celebrity. At the age of 75, he managed to do advertisements for Coca-cola, appeared on television talk shows, signed autographs, and took pictures with his fans. He got a lot of working experience even after retirement. Besides, András is also using the meme for good. He is the face of a campaign for a mental health service in Hungary. He wants to use his sad smile to bring people’s attention to mental health care.

The theme of this month is Thanksgiving. András is very thankful because he can find a way to do something good with his forced smiling face. But another important message I want to share today is “Do not say bad words on the Internet”. Sometimes, you may send some mean texts to other people just for fun. In fact, this is cyberbullying that would hurt other people. So think twice next time before you send out a message on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, WeChat, or Xiaohongshu. Make sure your post does not contain any hurtful, abusive or threatening messages.

Mr. Sham B.
13 July 2022