You have probably seen Jake somewhere on the internet. That serious-looking kid writing down something using a pencil on a piece of paper. You have to admit, he does look pretty damn serious! The sort of demeanor you would expect a really uptight school principal, boss, or someone that is about to whoop someone’s @$$ to have!
The story of little serious Jake began way back in 2015, when cameraman, Carlos Cortes, was on a trip to Ghana to shoot a documentary about Solomon Adufar. A US-based artist who was returning home to Ghana.
Cortes took pictures of a lot of people while in Adufar’s entourage, and Jake was one of the many. When the two men returned back to the United States, they had no idea that one of the pictures will go viral. Cortes certainly noticed Jake in many of the pictures he took, but didn’t think much about it. He posted the pictures (many, including Jake’s) on his Instagram account thinking the primary focus would be Adufar.
Much to his surprise, Jake’s picture kept getting most of the likes, which hit him as odd since Jake was not the primary focus of his photo shoot. Although he noticed something particularly unique with Jake’s picture. At first, Cortes thought people were just making fun of Jake from all the like he was getting on Instagram, but then the likes only kept growing and growing.
Cortes then stopped dismissing the viral post, and then the idea of monetizing these like into funds that could help Jake’s village back in Ghana. Some of the villagers were really struggling just to keep their children going back to school. The school itself had deplorable facilities and learning materials.
Most Recent picture of Jake by CARLOS CORTES [Credit: BBC]
While people were taking Jake’s pictures and making memes out of it, Cortes set up a fundraising campaign to raise money to help Jake’s village. In its 24 hours running, the campaign had hit over $2,000, which was 10% of the target.
