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Arts & Entertainment

SF college student Nicole Gagliardi has amassed millions of Instagram followers via ‘Little Miss’ meme

Nicole Gagliardi edits a “Little Miss” meme on her laptop in her home in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, July 28, 2022. Gagliardi’s Instagram account @littlemissnotesapp has accumulated 1.9 million followers in less than a month. | Juliana Yamada/The Standard

If you’ve opened Instagram or Twitter recently, you may have been greeted by a smiling yellow blob with pigtails and a caption that reads: “Little Miss Packs 2 Weeks Worth of Clothes for a Weekend Trip.”

The “Little Miss” meme is based on a children’s book series, and every iteration of it features a bubbly character and a caption beginning with the words “Little Miss,” “Little Mr.” or “Little Mx.”—followed by a specific (and often hyperspecific) personality quirk. 

While the trend is open to anyone with a social media presence and a pulse, one of the most popular Instagram pages to have jumped on the bandwagon, @littlemissnotesapp, went viral this month—amassing 2 million followers in the span of three weeks and demonstrating the weirdness of our hyperconnected modern age.

The account is not the work of a tech-savvy, Gen Z-focused branding agency or a well-known influencer. It’s the work of Nicole Gagliardi, a 22-year-old college student living in the Crocker Amazon neighborhood of San Francisco with two roommates and a dog named Sugar.

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