BadBoy2 / I'm 18, Do I Have Potential?

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About

BadBoy2 is a BodyBuilding Forums member who famously posted a shirtless photograph of himself flexing his muscles accompanied by the question "I'm 18, do I have potential?" The post inspired an exploitable photoshop meme poking fun at the earnest question, editing his likeness into a variety of humorous contexts.

Origin

BodyBuilding Forums^[1] user badboy2 posted a thread titled "I'm 18, do I have potential?" on October 30th, 2005, which featured a photograph of a shirtless man flexing in front of a window (shown left). The same day, forum member Brer Ben replied with an edited version of the photo, featuring various pirate accessories edited on to badboy2's likeness (shown right). Several other photoshopped versions were subsequently posted, eventually leading to over 7,600 replies prior to its removal in November of 2010.

Spread

On July 16th, 2006, the badboy2 thread was linked in a post on the photo editing enthuthiast Photochopz^[4] forum. On November 12th, BodyBuilding^[9] forums member MSB posted a thread titled "I'm 18, do I have potential??", which included a picture of himself recreating the badboy2 photograph.

On January 5th, 2007, YouTuber dkf10425 uploaded a video titled "I'm 18, Do I Have Potential?", which included a slideshow of photoshopped badboy2 images accompanied by the track "Dumb Girl" by the rap group Run-DMC (shown below). On May 23rd, a thread was started on the DVD Talk^[10] forums titled "I'm 18, do I have potential?", which featured several notable badboy 2 photoshops.

[This video has been removed]

On September 28th, 2008, several examples were posted on the Internet humor site Bad Control.^[5] On March 17th, 2009, an Urban Dictionary^[8] definition for "potential" was submitted by user notbadboy2, which defined the term as "the power to be epic." On July 8th, a Yahoo Answers^[3] question titled "I'm 18, do I have potential?" was submitted, which linked to the original badboy2 photograph. On May 27th, 2011, a badboy2 card was created on the virtual Pokemon card site MyPokeCard.^[12]

Return to BodyBuilding.com

On January 24th, 2007, badboy2 returned to the BodyBuilding^[13] Forums under the handle Marcusgraham^[7], posting several pictures of his new physique before being banned by the site's moderators. On March 31st, forum member AniMaLizTik posted a thread titled "BadBoy2 PM'd me new pic"^[15], which featured several new photos of badboy2 (shown below). On September 15th, 2007, badboy2 created a new profile The_Good_Life^[14] and has submitted over 635 posts on the account as of June 7th, 2012.