OMG! I'm an internet sensation

Unbeknownst to me, someone who saw my blog post from last year, the one about me being a look-alike for a Playboy centerfold, posted the photo and a description on Reddit in a subgroup called r/OldSchoolCool. This is the description of the group which has over 15 million members:  **History's cool kids, looking fantastic!** A pictorial and video celebration of history's coolest kids, everything from beatniks to bikers, mods to rude boys, hippies to ravers. And everything in between. If you've found a photo, or a photo essay, of people from the past looking fantastic, here's the place to share it.

Here is what was posted in the group: This is a 1967 photo of high school student Cynthia Blanton holding a copy of the March 1967 issue of Playboy. She was mistaken for Miss March ‘Fran’ by the boys at school. Having a great sense of humor she had her friend the school yearbook photographer take this picture!

Someone told me that this story was blowing up with many comments and gave me a link to it.  I had heard of Reddit but had never looked at it, so I followed the link to see what was going on.  To my astonishment, this story had over 800 comments, and today there are over 1000.  Plus, when I checked my blog stats, my original post has over 4,000 views, compared to the usual 100-200 for my other posts. Almost all the comments in this Reddit group are friendly and some are even flattering, so the group appears to be mostly people who enjoy nostalgia for days gone by.  

It is kind of weird to read what people are saying about you and the assumptions they make based on almost no information.  Some figured out my age and wondered if I am still among the living.  Another commenter who had looked at my blog reported that I am alive and well and living in Mexico.  A couple of folks copied the rest of my blog post that described the prank I pulled on my mom and readers loved it. 

Being me, I felt compelled to respond to some of the comments.  One obviously young person asked how anyone could do a hair style like in the photo.  Another person said, "Back in the day, they used big soup-can rollers, then put their hair in a pony tail and spread it around."  I replied, "Yep.  I'm the lady in the photo and that's pretty much how I did it."  I replied to several more comments which freaked people out: "Oh wow.  I never expected the real Cynthia to show up here."  A couple of people asked for a current photo which I politely declined to provide.

I don't fully understand how Reddit works.  If you like a comment, you can "up vote" it and/or give an award.  I got two rewards and tons of up votes so now I have 1,200 karma points.  I have no idea what that means.

Overall, this was a strange but amusing experience and most commenters were very nice.  The only negative is that someone crossposted the story to r/AgedBeauty which upon inspection is a porn subgroup featuring older women.  Sigh.

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For original blog post, just search this blog for Playboy.