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  • - Type "white guy" into Google

  • and the first picture you'll see is this.

  • And that is me.

  • Hi, my name is Reed Kavner,

  • but you may recognize my face from TikTok videos

  • about white guys, TikTok profile pictures,

  • people's LinkedIn profiles, scam pages on the internet,

  • online dating profiles from dudes who are not me.

  • I accidentally became the face of the default white guy.

  • And this is that story.

  • It started in 2018.

  • I got a text from my friend, Lizzie Logan,

  • who is a humor writer,

  • and she writes for the website reductress.com.

  • And she asked me if I wanted to be

  • in a stock photo shoot for them.

  • Reductress is a satire news site kind of like The Onion,

  • but with a feminist perspective.

  • And so they write a lot of stories about men

  • or from the perspective of fictional men.

  • And they always use stock photos to accompany these stories

  • and kind of give a face to the characters

  • they're writing about.

  • And I was very excited to get this text.

  • And I immediately said, yes.

  • I have a lot of comedian friends in New York.

  • And a lot of them have had the chance

  • to be stock photos for Reductress.

  • And I was always a little jealous.

  • I wanted to do it too.

  • And I just got this text out of the blue from her.

  • And I went down to their office and did it.

  • They took pictures of me on the street,

  • pictures of me in an office,

  • pictures of me in a kitchen,

  • pictures of me with a group.

  • Then nothing happened for months.

  • And then one day I get a message on Instagram saying like,

  • "Hey, is this you?"

  • And they had finally used one of my photos in an article

  • where the headline was "Most Guys Just Want Sex,

  • But I Would Be Okay With Hand Stuff."

  • And then there was my picture

  • as the character of the guy saying that.

  • So a few of the articles that they have used my face for

  • are "White Guy Excited to Burn Down the System

  • and Also Control the Rebuilding Effort."

  • This guy's excited for COVID to end

  • so he can start touching women again.

  • I think that I want people to understand

  • that I'm playing a character.

  • These stock photo shots that I took were not me.

  • 'Cause they're a satire site and I'm a comedian

  • and I thought that it would just be a fun thing

  • to be part of.

  • So, pretty recently I was working at home.

  • I was reaching the end of the day

  • and I decided to just like call it at 3:00 PM

  • and lay down and scroll TikTok with my dog.

  • And I opened TikTok and I had a notification

  • and one of my TikTok followers had just mentioned my name

  • in the comment section of a post.

  • So I went and I watched the post

  • and the video was this Asian guy.

  • And he was making a joke

  • about how he frequently finds himself hitting on Asian women

  • to only discover that they are dating white men.

  • And that's disappointing to him.

  • And I was the representation of the white man.

  • And it was very surprising.

  • Like I'm watching this video,

  • being like why of all of the photos

  • of all of the white guys, why me for this?

  • Like, was there something about my face

  • or what I was wearing that made me perfect for this?

  • And then something occurred to me,

  • was that like, oh, Reductress is a popular site.

  • Like, I'm sure they do pretty good with SEO.

  • I wonder if he just was typing like "white dude" into Google

  • and just picked a photo.

  • And so that's what I did.

  • I started searching

  • and I think maybe the first phrase that I searched

  • was "white guy" and right there on the first page,

  • like number eight or something was my photo.

  • Then it was kind of amusing, very surprising.

  • And so, I made my own TikTok reaction video.

  • I explained what was happening

  • and if I didn't want to be on the first page of Google

  • for white guy,

  • making a video about it was a real bad move

  • because the video that I made got two million views

  • within the first day

  • and my ranking on the Google image search for "white guy"

  • started climbing to number two after Chett Hanks,

  • son of Tom Hanks,

  • who is number one because he coined the term

  • and the idea of white boy summer.

  • So then I began seeing my picture in all sorts of places.

  • I saw people on TikTok using my photo

  • as their profile photo.

  • I did a reverse image search

  • and found that there are people on LinkedIn

  • who I think that they're scammers

  • and they're using my photo

  • just 'cause they needed a white guy

  • to represent the face of whatever scam they're running.

  • Or maybe I'm just better looking than they are.

  • And they thought it was an upgrade, I don't know.

  • I got a message on Hinge the other day

  • from a woman who said,

  • "Hey, there's another guy on Hinge using your photo."

  • I got one comment from a kid saying,

  • "Hey, I used your photo in a school project."

  • And it's like,

  • I don't know what that school project is about.

  • And I'm like, he's a kid, I'm sure it's fine.

  • But any time that somebody is doing a Google image search

  • for "white guy,"

  • like they aren't necessarily doing something positive

  • in the world.

  • And so I think that's my biggest fear

  • is if someone needs to just go grab an image of a white guy,

  • are they a white supremacist?

  • Are they someone who is like maybe seeking racial justice?

  • I don't know.

  • It could be any number of things,

  • but I'm just hoping that it's not like a white supremacist.

  • (laughs)

  • (upbeat music)

- Type "white guy" into Google

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