I Am Growing Stronger

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Part of a series on 2014 Ebola Outbreak. [View Related Entries]

This entry is growing stronger everyday.

About

"I Am Growing Stronger" is a memorable statement from the American doctor Kent Brantly, who contracted Ebola during his stay on Africa. Although the quote was refering to his recovery from the virus and the effectiveness of the medicine, on some online communities it was interpreted as he was gaining powers from the infection, inspiring a series of edits where Brantly was given glowing eyes.

Origin

On August 8th, 2014, Kent Brantly released his first public statement since contracting Ebola stating that he was "growing stronger every day." Various news outlets wrote about this statement, such as Time,^[1] The Guardian,^[2] Fox News^[3] and Mashable.^[4] On August 9th, reddit user Kaithas made a post on /r/funny, where Brantly's statement was jokingly received to define that he was gaining superhuman abilities from Ebola.^[9] On August 13th, a thread was made on 4chan's /pol/ board,^[5] where one of the posts included an edited version featuring a picture of Brantly with yellow glowing eyes, and the message "American with Ebola: "I'm Growing Stronger"".

Spread

Following the initiation of this thread, various images were posted in the thread where the news photograph of Brantly became photoshopped to give him glowing eyes and other signs of superhuman powers, as well as edited versions of the news articles featuring him as a powerful creature who "had awoken the power of the ancient gods". The thread was subsequently screencaptured (shown below) and posted on the r/4chan sub-Reddit where it received over 4,000 upvotes in a few days.^[6]