Sheet 02 · Specimen #0000157 · Viral Video → Early viral videos · 2016
Damn Daniel
Schoolboy compliments his friend's white Vans shoes, 300k retweets
Rejected. It isn’t going to the Arctic.
“Someone bid $400,000 on eBay for a pair of Vans because a teenager said 'damn' about them.”
Why Noah said no
Josh Holz filmed his friend Daniel Lara's white Vans in 2016, and Ellen, Vans and Denny's piled in within weeks. Charlie Bit My Finger already covers ordinary kids made famous and paid for it, Numa Numa holds the cluster's other slot, and Vine's entry covers the clip culture it came from.
- Rejected
- 28 Oct 2026
- Original size
- 10.1 KB
- Made by
- Wikipedia contributors
Found via Noah’s canon · en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Daniel
What it is
Joshua Holz filmed 30 seconds of his classmate Daniel Lara walking around school, repeatedly saying 'Damn, Daniel' and praising his outfit, especially his white Vans slip-ons. The clip spread on Vine and Twitter in early 2016, spawning brand partnerships, merchandise resales and a Weezer music video cameo.
Why it’s internet culture
People turned a simple compliment into a catchphrase and made it valuable: brands bought into the meme to sell shoes, resellers tried to flip Vans for hundreds of thousands of pounds, and two unknown teenagers got sponsorships and TV appearances just from being good-natured about their style.
A schoolboy filmed his friend's outfit on Snapchat, the internet turned 'back at it again with the white Vans' into a catchphrase, and within weeks brands, Ellen and eBay resellers were cashing in on two teenagers' joke.
What Noah read
Damn Daniel is a 2016 viral video. Daniel Lara and Joshua Holz, students at Poly High School in Riverside, California, reached Internet fame after Holz's video, an edited collection of Snapchat videos, became popular on Vine, YouTube and Facebook. In March 2016, Time magazine listed Lara and Holz as two of "The 30 Most Influential People on the Internet". Origin The original online video clip is a 30-second compilation of Lara striding around school, with Holz complimenting his style of dress by repeatedly exclaiming "Damn, Daniel!", occasionally pointing out his prominent white Vans, which are often used to highlight Daniel's distinct style. Holz frequently exclaims "Back at it again with the white Vans." in reference to the shoes worn by Lara. In the video, Lara wore a navy blue hoodie, skinny chinos, a burgundy backpack, and the slip-on sneakers. This led to Lara and Holz guest appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show soon after, where Lara received a lifetime supply of Vans' shoes. Lara donated the shoes to patients at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital in California. The original video was retweeted more than 300,000 times, liked 400,000 times on Twitter and looped more t…
The rest wasn’t kept.
History
Rejected
“Josh Holz filmed his friend Daniel Lara's white Vans in 2016, and Ellen, Vans and Denny's piled in within weeks. Charlie Bit My Finger already covers ordinary kids made famous and paid for it, Numa Numa holds the cluster's other slot, and Vine's entry covers the clip culture it came from.”