{"slug":"bad-luck-brian","name":"Bad Luck Brian","url":"/templates/bad-luck-brian.jpg","w":945,"h":1200,"top":"DOES SOMETHING NORMAL","bottom":"WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME","description":"Bad Luck Brian meme generator. The kid with braces and a sweater vest who turns every normal situation into a catastrophe. Add your own misfortune.","keywords":"bad luck brian meme, bad luck meme, unlucky meme, braces kid meme, sweater vest meme, misfortune meme","year":2012,"origin":"The school photo of a kid with braces, a plaid sweater vest, and an unfortunate smile surfaced on Reddit in January 2012. The format is simple: do something perfectly normal on top, suffer a wildly disproportionate consequence on the bottom. Bad Luck Brian became one of the original advice animals and the internet's patron saint of cosmic misfortune. If Brian plans something, it will go wrong. If he does nothing, it will still go wrong. For self-inflicted disasters, see Bike Fall (you caused it yourself). Disaster Girl takes the opposite angle: she's the one causing the chaos.","format":"classic","howToMake":["The Bad Luck Brian template is ready to go. Just add your misfortune","Top text sets up a normal, everyday action (\"TAKES A SELFIE\"). Bottom text delivers the absurdly unlucky result (\"PHONE FALLS IN THE TOILET\"). The more extreme the gap, the better","Classic mode puts your top/bottom text directly on Brian's cursed school photo, which is where this format lives and breathes","Stick with bold white Impact and black outlines for the full 2012 advice animal look. Oversized bottom text makes the punchline hit harder","Bad luck immortalized. Grab the PNG with Download or send Brian's suffering to your group chat with Share"],"exampleCaptions":["TAKES A SICK DAY","GETS BETTER"],"exampleAltText":"Bad Luck Brian meme about taking a sick day and immediately getting better","exampleRefreshDate":"2026-03-02","seo":{"aliases":["Bad Luck Meme","Unlucky Kid Meme","Braces Kid Meme","BLB Meme","Kyle Craven Meme","School Photo Meme"],"description":"A school portrait of a teenage boy with a wide, toothy grin full of metal braces, wearing a plaid sweater vest over a collared shirt. The lighting is the flat, unforgiving fluorescent of a school picture day. His expression is genuinely cheerful, which makes the disasters that follow each caption feel even worse. He looks like someone who just tried his best and is about to be punished for it by the entire universe. Every caption is a new catastrophe falling on the same optimistic kid who never sees it coming.","definition":"A school photo of a braces-wearing teenager in a sweater vest, paired with a setup/punchline where something ordinary leads to a comically terrible outcome. The meme is the internet's shorthand for being cosmically, hilariously unlucky.","useCases":[{"category":"Classic BLB Misfortune","examples":["Wins the lottery / owes more in taxes than the prize","Gets invited to a party / it was last weekend","Makes the varsity team / sport gets cut from the school","First kiss / allergic reaction to her lip gloss","Finds a genie lamp / all three wishes have been used"]},{"category":"School & Work","examples":["Studies the one chapter the teacher said would be on the test / test is on everything except that chapter","Gets Employee of the Month / company goes bankrupt that month","Finally memorizes his locker combination / school switches to digital locks","Brings lunch from home to save money / someone eats it from the fridge","Raises hand with the right answer / teacher says \"anyone else?\""]},{"category":"Technology","examples":["Backs up his phone for the first time / backup file corrupts the computer too","Buys the newest iPhone / Apple announces the next one tomorrow","Types a 3-page email / hits send and it goes to the wrong person","Finally gets verified on Twitter / Twitter shuts down","Clears browser history / mom already saw it"]},{"category":"Social Life","examples":["Waves at someone / they were waving at the person behind him, who also ignores him","Gets a date to prom / she transfers schools the next day","Tells a joke at a party / someone else tells the same joke louder and gets the laugh","Shows up to the surprise party early / it was a surprise party for him","Changes his profile pic / loses followers"]},{"category":"Health & Sports","examples":["Starts going to the gym / gym burns down","Runs his first marathon / in the wrong direction","Eats healthy for a month / doctor says he gained weight","Gets picked first for dodgeball / hit in the face before the whistle","Finally beats his personal record / Fitbit wasn't on"]}]}}