Pawpaw Makes Global Internet Legends List

Nollywood actor Osita Iheme, popularly known as Pawpaw, joins global internet legends, despite becoming famous as an adult playing a child.

Nollywood actor Osita Iheme, popularly known as Pawpaw, has been named on a global list of people who became internet legends through viral moments associated with their childhood.

A post shared by foreign social media account REALIBITY placed Iheme alongside popular internet personalities and meme figures including Success Kid, Bad Luck Brian and Side-Eyeing Chloe.

However, there is one amusing difference between Pawpaw and most of the figures on the list: Iheme was already an adult when he became famous.

Iheme was 25 when he rose to prominence after starring alongside Chinedu Ikedieze in the 2002 Nollywood blockbuster Aki na Ukwa.

While Iheme played Pawpaw, Ikedieze portrayed Aki, with both actors becoming hugely popular for their performances as mischievous children despite being adults.

Their small stature and comic performances made them regular choices for childlike roles, eventually turning Aki and Pawpaw into enduring figures in Nollywood’s pop culture history.

Years later, scenes from Iheme’s films found a new audience on social media, with his facial expressions and memorable moments transformed into reaction memes.

By 2019, memes featuring Iheme and Ikedieze had become deeply embedded in internet culture, with their images widely used to express emotions including confusion, frustration, excitement and disbelief.

Their popularity also crossed Nigeria’s borders, with international audiences, brands and media outlets adopting the memes in online conversations.

He was previously described Iheme as one of the Nollywood actors who became a major part of Nigerian meme culture, particularly because of the continued use of his expressions from old films.

The global list also features individuals whose childhood photographs or videos turned them into instantly recognisable internet personalities.

Sam Griner, popularly known as Success Kid, became an internet sensation after his mother shared a photograph of him as a toddler.

Kyle Craven became Bad Luck Brian after his school yearbook photograph was transformed into a widely circulated meme, while Chloe Clem became known as Side-Eyeing Chloe after a 2013 video showing her reaction to a surprise Disneyland trip went viral.

His internet fame did not originate from a childhood photograph or an accidental viral video. Instead, it came years after he had already established himself as a Nollywood actor, when old scenes from his films were rediscovered and transformed into some of the internet’s most recognisable reaction memes.

So, while the internet may have placed Pawpaw in the company of famous viral kids, Nigerians know the real gist: Pawpaw was already a grown man; he was simply playing the role of a child.

More than two decades after Aki na Ukwa, Iheme remains one of Nollywood’s most recognisable faces, while the Pawpaw character continues to live on across social media through memes, reaction images and viral moments.