Kendall Harlan '10, Sarah Bourland '10 and Natalie Zaysoff '10 were on a 2008 spring break trip in Stingray City, a popular tourist destination in the Cayman Islands, when a tour guide in the water behind the women lifted the stingray onto their backs just as the photo was taken.
They uploaded the photo to Facebook, where it was shared by friends. But the image of the three seemingly terrified women being "photobombed" by a man with a giant stingray did not achieve viral status until last week, when a former classmate posted it on Reddit.com.
Zaysoff says a picture taken right before the now-famous photobomb shows them smiling while posing in the water with a stingray. The tour guide threw another stingray up behind them.
"We had No idea that this was going to happen," she said. "It is funny because on the boat, they give a five-minute safety speech about not picking up the sting rays or throwing them on people because it is dangerous and can lead to getting stung by one. Well, I guess those rules don't apply to the guys running the show!"
Now, more than four years, later, they're an Internet sensation.
"Our phones just started going off," Harlan, now a 24-year-old executive in Austin, told Yahoo! News. "Friends were texting us [things] like, 'Did you know you were just on 'Good Morning America'?'"
Zaysoff says that the most surprising thing is that people are so interested in it.
"We have been laughing at the picture for years because it is so funny and captures all of our personalities perfectly," she says. "We are all happy that other people are getting to see it and get a good laugh from it.
"Everything has just been so crazy, I don't even know what to say about it. One day it was on my Facebook and the next day it was on 'Good Morning America' and the homepage of Yahoo.com. I still can't believe how many Web pages were showing it and calling us for comments. The craziest thing so far is someone actually asked our permission to blow the picture up and make a canvas print of it for his wife!"
Bourland explained the amazing capture in an email to HuffPost Travel:
"I had no idea that this photo was going to become so huge! To be honest, I had no idea that it was even posted to reddit.com until I started getting a slew of phone calls, texts, emails, photo messages [and] Facebook tags of people saying that they saw me on Reddit. I was so confused because I had no idea what was going on.
"People then started sending me memes of the photo and that's when it hit me, I have reached meme status in my life! How many people can say that?!
"This entire thing is hilarious to me! I'm a school teacher in Fort Worth, and all my kids think that I'm a celebrity and keep asking for my autograph and if I know Justin Beiber and other teen icons.
"This photo was taken five years ago in Cayman Island at Stingray Island. We were on a cruise for spring break. The photographer originally asked us to take a photo with the stingray in front of us, which we did, but then afterward as a joke he put it on our backs without us knowing!
"Our reactions are genuine, and the photographer snapped the photo at the perfect time! We had no idea that the photo was so brilliant until later when he showed us the proof. We immediately bought it. From left to right are Sarah Bourland, Natalie Zaysoff, Kendall Harlan.
"It was a huge hit back at Texas Christian University, where we were going to school at the time, and so we decided to try and send it to the Ellen show. For five years now she has been denying us, but now that it has gone viral we are hoping that this is our chance!"
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