The Legend of Linda Skeens

How a dominant performance at the VA-KY District Fair Made her an international viral meme

To start with this story about what happened to 74-year-old Linda Skeens this past summer, we have got to understand what a meme is. In this context, it is an internet joke, shared in the form of a picture with text on it. A very simple construct that caused a simple stay-at-home grandmother to become the topic international of discussion. Another question begged by this situation is, how do things become viral? There seems to be no real method to the madness as wealthy marketers try and fail constantly to work out the formula of virility. Magic happened this summer as people found out about Linda’s Baking domination at the VA-KY district fair. The fair’s Facebook account posted the results from the competitions that had taken place and in almost every single category one name showed up time and time again, Linda Skeens. To the utter shock of people following the page this was no mistake, Linda Skeens had dominated and the memes started flowing into the comment section. The hype around the situation didn’t stall with this single post, as the shock from her 40-plus ribbon performance started to wear off a new element of intrigue took over the collective consciousness of those involved in this new meme. Who is Linda Skeens?

It seemed as if a ghost had rolled through the county fair won all of the top prizes and simply vanished. There were no social media profiles and nobody was stepping up to even claim that they knew who she was. The internet collective seems to love nothing more than a good mystery. Mason Mousette, a radio host and Tiktok content creator put out the call to action that turned into an international manhunt to find out who is this county fair queen known as Linda Skeens? With the quick turnaround time of only a few days, Linda’s very own Granddaughter would see the TikTok video and respond to Mason on the Mic thus answering the question of who is Linda Skeens. Though she had been found this humble country grandmother was not interested in any kind of fame. She was not interested in doing any interviews and even turned down the today show on several occasions. It seemed that the public would never get a chance to see the woman behind the dominant performance at the VA-KY District fair. The memes, however, did not stop, and Linda’s family persisted that she take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that they felt she deserved. They wanted to share their awesome Grandmother with the world who was eagerly waiting. Now knowing that her moment in the spotlight was unavoidable Linda Skeens made the decision to do a phone interview with Mousette on HOT 93.3 Dallas. The world got a chance to see the humble nature of Linda Skeens as she would not accept the comparison of her performance at the fair to the career of legendary Nascar driver Dale Earnhardt. After a few months of consideration, Linda Skeens decided it was time to show the world who she was and share her award-winning recipes. With the announcement of her very own cookbook, “Linda Skeens Blue Ribbon Kitchen”, Linda finally made her appearance on the Today show and the world was introduced to the Legendary Linda Skeens. Linda has since started her very own Facebook page. A Truly wholesome story like this does not come along very often.

We have all seen instances like this where the power of the internet making an unsuspected person go viral has turned out very badly, but this situation is quite the opposite. The question is still there, what makes a meme go viral? How does a 74-year-old grandmother from Southwestern Virginia go viral with no social media presence, get a book deal and make it onto the Today show in a couple of months' time? Nikki Fleming from Clintwood Virginia was just as surprised as anyone when her social media was suddenly flooded with Linda Skeens memes, “The first time I heard of Linda Skeens was on Instagram. It was from a local meme page called, Appalachian memes. There were multiple memes regarding her recent win at the local fair. “, she said. Nikki went on to say, “When the local “meme page” shared their photos, I had no clue that it would become viral. Then, my social media was flooded with none other than local (now legend), Linda Skeens. I couldn’t believe it. Things like that just don’t happen to people from here.”. Nikki seems to believe that the internet as it is today creates an environment for even the most unlikely people to go viral, “The internet is a wild place that connects us all. Without it, you get an occasional star-like Mrs. Parton or Loretta Lynn. Now, people entertain themselves with social media. If the right person, or enough folks, share something- boom- viral sensation. Attaching one idea to several images for humor is something a lot of people can relate to and it’s easy to share.” To get a better understanding of internet meme culture and what makes them go viral, I spoke with meme expert and professional YouTuber Nathan Hamilton of Renegade Media Group. When asked how something like this goes viral Nate said, “It’s almost impossible to quantify because of how many random aspects had to come together to make this into a thing but, at the baseline of it, The wholesome nature of it, the dominate nature of it, the humble nature of it, the mystique, it was just a lot of things coming together that made it work.”. When I spoke with Casey Mullins who is an administrator for the VA-KY District fair Facebook page she said that she was very thankful and it “makes the fair look good”. When I reached out to Appalachian memes on Instagram they said,” I feel like we had some good engagement with it, but nothing stellar.”, Which seems to point at the meme going viral on Facebook and Tiktok but not doing as well on Instagram. The formula for a viral meme remains a mystery, but the Legend of Linda Skeens has turned out to have a happy ending.