Meet the Nigerian comedian behind one of the biggest memes of 2017

You have most likely seen the meme and its gif counterpart over and over again on your timeline.

The meme of a black man with a knowing smile, with his finger, pointed at his head is one of the best memes so far. The meme usually accompanies a hilarious tweet that states the use of common sense. For example, check the tweets below;

The man in the meme is the 23-year-old actor Kayode Ewumi. He plays the role of Roll Safe, a hilarious character who thinks he is a grime rapper of enormous talent and street cred. He actually is a waste man as they say in England.

The famous meme is taken from an episode of ‘Hood Documentary‘ by BBC Three. The title of the episode is ‘Happy Belated’. The series is shot in a faux-reality show style where Roll Safe displays his several acts of stupidity.

In this particular episode, Roll Safe makes a terrible joke about his date’s intelligence than looks at the camera and points his finger to his head. In Roll Safe’s world, he just made a dope joke when it was obviously terrible.

https://twitter.com/Kingwole/status/826485113731047426

Like every other viral content, Roll Safe’s funny gesture was on the Internet for months before it got to Twitter and blew up.

Before BBC Three picked up Hood Documentary, Kayode Ewumi and his partner Tyrell Williams shot the fake reality show and uploaded it to YouTube in October 2015.

Hood Documentary Episode 1, was a viral smash in London. Everyone couldn’t get enough of the mad man who had no iota of talent and fame. It racked up an insane number of views in a short while.

Encouraged by the success, Episode 2 was uploaded on YouTube and taken down shortly after. This did not stop Roll Safe’s momentum.

The British-Nigerian who studied Theater at Coventry University and was nominated for the 2016 BAFTA for his role as Roll Safe.

You don't have to post a jpg if you have a gif pic.twitter.com/xiH6xj4RWv

— 2C (@Cellix1) February 5, 2017