Overly Attached Girlfriend

When your face becomes the internet's definition of clingy, the joke isn't always on everyone else. The "Overly Attached Girlfriend" meme emerged from what was supposed to be a simple contest entry, transforming college student Laina Morris into one of the most recognizable faces of early 2010s internet culture.

The video was a submission to a contest held by Justin Bieber who challenged fans to create a "Girlfriend" counterpart to his hit song "Boyfriend" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). On June 6, 2012, Morris uploaded her now-famous video titled "JB Fanvideo" to YouTube. What set her submission apart wasn't just the clever parody lyrics about stalking behaviors, but her deliberately unsettling performance style featuring Morris staring at the camera with a fixed smile while singing about Facebook-stalking her boyfriend and other themes (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).

Morris wasn't what you'd call a Belieber. She was more intrigued by the singer's origin story — how he'd been accidentally discovered on YouTube and then mentored by Usher — than she was his music (Refinery29, 2016). The 20-year-old University of North Texas education major had taken a semester off to figure out her direction in life when she remembered the contest deadline approaching. She changed from her uniform top into a dirty green T-shirt crumpled on her bedroom floor, sat down in front of her webcam, and got started (Refinery29, 2016).

The transformation from contest entry to meme happened with stunning speed. The video found its way onto some website called Reddit that Morris had never heard of. Within hours, it had a million views (Refinery29, 2016). The next day, a Redditor by the name of yeahhtoast took a screen grab from the video, added some words in white text, and Overly Attached Girlfriend was born (Refinery29, 2016).

The meme format followed the classic image macro structure, featuring Morris's wide-eyed, intensely smiling face accompanied by text that portrayed obsessive girlfriend behaviors. Popular iterations included captions like "It took you 15 minutes to get home. Google Maps said it takes 12. Who is she?" and "Your bedroom looks different through binoculars" (People, 2024).

Morris quickly embraced her unexpected internet fame, creating the YouTube channel "Laina" to capitalize on the meme's popularity. She identifies herself in videos only as Laina with many articles leaving out her last name on her request (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). Her content strategy involved both playing the Overly Attached Girlfriend character and showcasing her personality beyond the meme.

The cultural impact was immediate and substantial. Morris was named by Mashable as one of "15 People Made Famous by the Internet in 2012" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). She appeared on late-night television, attended events like VidCon, and even featured in commercial work, including a Samsung advertisement where she played an "Overly Attached Computer."

However, the psychological toll of sudden internet fame proved challenging. Starting around 2014, I landed myself in a real deep depression and I was keeping it a real deep secret from everyone around me Morris revealed in 2019 (Tyla, 2025). The pressure of content creation and the association with a character representing unhealthy relationship behaviors created ongoing struggles with mental health.

In 2019, Morris announced her departure from YouTube, citing depression and anxiety as primary factors. She talked about the depression and anxiety that she experienced off camera. Prior to this announcement, she had only posted one video to YouTube in the previous two years (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).