Random Celebrity: Kerin Portillo

Every now and again I stumble upon an Internet meme from a few years ago that I had no idea ever existed.  Some of these can be amusing, many times they're just obnoxious, but what I find interesting is when a person becomes an Internet meme, gaining a level of celebrity that may not be earth-shattering, but is still surprising.

Sometimes it's someone in a commercial, like the Old Spice Guy, or even a classic character like the "Where's the beef?" woman.  At times, it could be someone whose face just happens to get in the news, like the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy.

And then there are people whose faces you see everywhere, but you never know their name.  One such person is Kerin Portillo.



Now, trust me when I say that I'm 99.999999% sure that you have no idea who she is, but I'm sure you've seen her before.

Perhaps you saw her while considering buying the Defender Sentinel model security system on Amazon.  Maybe you're a huge fan of PETA and you saw her on a newsletter.  Or, maybe you simply saw her on any number of posters around college campuses.

See, Kerin Portillo is a model (and an amazingly attractive one at that).  Many of her pictures are part of the Fotolia royalty-free stock photos that any business could purchase and use for their own posters, fliers, websites, or whatever other purpose they might have in mind.

However, Kerin's own personal fame didn't really rise until she became part of an Internet meme known as the Sheltered College Freshman.

This is the cleanest one I felt comfortable posting, but some of the others are hilarious.

Because the Internet's reach is ridiculously long, after some time someone was able to identify this model from Bogota, Columbia and immediately people started searching for her everywhere.  There's actually a page on reddit devoted to sitings of her on everything from Catholic school fliers to billboards for car washes to "ladies night" bar advertisements.  Her image gets around.

But here's the funny thing.  Some people who become famous shy away from the spotlight.  In fact, remember the girl from that video for "Stacy's Mom?"  Yeah, it turns out that she got so much terrible attention from perverted adults that she quit showing up in anything and pretty much went into hiding from all appearances.  The Internet can be pretty scary.

Kerin, however, found out about how people were looking for her, and has not only embraced her own little "fan club" but contributes her own pictures, and has her own Twitter account to speak to her fans and a Facebook fan page.  She's apparently now either works regularly in or has moved to Miami and is a pretty huge fan of the Heat.

If you look at her reddit page, you'll find regular postings from her (or a very good impersonator) talking about what she's up to, when she's taking new photos, and thanking all of her fans for their support.  Personally, I think this is great of her, since I know many people would find the attention disturbing.  In some cases (see above re: "Stacy's Mom"), it is rather negative attention, but when you become the focus of a global "Where's Waldo" style hunt for your image, I'd think it would be pretty flattering.

Plus, I have to confess, I used to think that modeling was probably the easiest job in the world.  However, having browsed through some of the images available on Fotolia, I've come to seriously reconsider that.  If you're simply wearing a jacket and standing in front of a street lamp to advertise clothes, that's one thing, but Kerin's career would seem to be based solely on her ability to be adaptable to any kind of sales pitch.  When looking a certain direction, she has to have her chin just so, her arm listed in just such a way, or be able to point in just the right direction.  I can only assume that the attention to detail is meticulous for someone like her, since stock photos have to both be incredibly detailed but also amazingly vague to help carry across the message.

"Okay, Kerin, we need a picture of you doing push-ups, but we need your arms bent slightly.  Okay, a little more, okay hold on while we brush some hair back, okay, smile a little less toothier...hold it...okay, wait, the light's off slightly...okay."

I'd probably go nuts.

So, I tip my hat to Kerin Portillo, the amazingly beautiful, amazingly talented model whose face has covered the world, and who I'm pretty sure I once saw at a college I attended on a poster for exchange students.