Overly Attached Girlfriend

In June 2012, Laina Morris entered a Justin Bieber fan video contest and emerged as the internet's most unsettling romantic prospect. Her parody of "Boyfriend"—rewritten as a hymn to obsessive surveillance and emotional hostage-taking—spawned a screenshot that would haunt relationship memes for years: those wide, unblinking eyes boring directly into your soul's commitment issues.

The format was instant catharsis for anyone who'd ever received too many texts in a row. "I looked through your phone while you were sleeping" became "I watched you while you slept and counted your breaths." The meme gave voice to a very specific anxiety—the partner who loved too much, too intensely, with too little regard for personal boundaries or restraining orders.

Laina leaned into her accidental fame with remarkable savvy, releasing follow-up parodies of "Call Me Maybe" and collaborating with YouTubers who wanted to "break up" with her character. She built a genuine audience, then gracefully stepped away from the spotlight to focus on charity work—proving the real Laina was approximately nothing like her creation.

The format burned through every relationship scenario imaginable until there was nothing left to possess. By 2014, the wide-eyed stare had mellowed into a knowing wink from meme veterans who remembered when clingy meant checking your Myspace comments.

She never stopped watching. She just got quieter about it.