2012 Most Viral Photos

Most Viral Photos: #1 McKayla Maroney

A member of the USA Gymnastics team at the Olympics, Maroney made her mark on the vault — and on her face. The 16-year-old had been favored to win the competition, but fell. However, she won silver based on the results of her earlier jumps. Her expression: mouth puckered to one side, arms crossed, looking, well, not impressed with her second-place finish in the Olympic women's vault competition. Her disappointed stance quickly became a Web meme: McKayla Maroney is not impressed. 

Most Viral Photos: #2 Angelina's Leg

Angelina Jolie had a leg up on the competition for best viral photo when she struck a pose at the Oscars with her right leg exposed from a thigh-high slit. Before the end of the Billy Crystal-hosted event, the gam had taken on a meme life of its own. The leg could be seen attached to the Statue of Liberty, saucing up Betty White, slipping into a Beatles album, appended to basketball star Jeremy Lin, and, as Yahoo!'s Mike Krumboltz reported, "by the time you read this, [in] about a million other things."

Most Viral Photos: #3 Moon as Olympic ring

In the age of photo manipulation, this picture-perfect image looks artificial, but it's the real thing. A full moon added an out-of-this-world glowing sixth circle to the Olympic rings hanging from the top of London's Tower Bridge for the summer Olympics in London. Luke MacGregor, a sharp-eyed Reuters photographer, shot the photo, which was retweeted thousands of times within an hour of posting. 

Most Viral Photos: #4 Mohawk Guy

Hey, kids, if you do really well in math and science, maybe you, too, can get to wear a Mohawk and land a rover on Mars. NASA's project to land the Curiosity rover on the red planet was beamed live on the Web and on Times Square. And that made a star of the 21st-century rocket scientist, mission activity lead Bobak Ferdowsi. The 32-year-old manned the controls while sporting a wild 'do that included the red streaked, spiky hair that revealed yellow stars buzzed into the side of his head. The man was dubbed Mohawk Guy and immediately became a meme, a Tumblr blog, and a Twitter feed. The MIT grad fielded marriage proposals and revealed a good sense of humor about his newfound fame. He tweeted, "Not rdy for the attention, but happy to show it takes all types to make @MarsCuriosity! If only my coworkers wld stop making fun of me ;)"

Most Viral Photos: #5 Sedated bear falling out of tree

Not the kind of thing you see every day: A sedated bear falling midair, out of a tree, to a soft landing on a safety mat below. The black bear was tranquilized after it wandered onto the University of Colorado campus in Boulder and climbed up a tree. The photo was captured by student photographer Andy Dunn for the CU Independent, the college paper. The image went viral and became one of the most popular, and eye-popping, photos of the year. While the image will live on, unfortunately the black bear wasn't so lucky: It was hit by a car after being released back into the wild.

Most Viral Photos: #6 Kissing kids photobomb Obama

A little romance in the top row definitely stole the show of this presidential photo op. During the 2012 campaign, President Barack Obama surprised the students at Daughter of Zion Jr. Academy in Delray Beach, Fla., with an unscheduled stop to take a photo with the kids. But perhaps the biggest surprise of all was the kissing pair photobombing the president. Obama, sitting in with the students, balances one child on his knee with no idea of the romantic drama going on above him. The cute photo of President Obama with the adorable sight of the kissing students caught the attention of the Web, and Twitter named it "photo of the day." 

Most Viral Photos: #7 Space shuttle in transit

The space shuttle Endeavour used to blast off and cruise around Earth at a mind-boggling 17,500 mph. Its last journey was a little slower. Mothballed after almost two decades of service, the spaceship hitched a ride on a Boeing 747 — buzzing cities and taking a celebratory final flight over landmarks like NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge at the low altitude of just 1,500 feet — and then landed at its final home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, California. Almost. For the last 12 miles, the space shuttle rolled slowly along at the walkable pace of 2 mph on a 160-wheeled carrier. Given that the shuttle weighs a pavement-busting 170,000 pounds, caution was understandable, and made the trip — and photos of it — highly memorable.

Most Viral Photos: #8 Real-life Barbie

Russian model Valeria Lukyanova has a look that seems designed to get attention from a Web-driven culture. She grabbed Internet fame for looking like a Barbie doll: The exaggerated eye makeup and the disproportionately tiny waist coupled with Barbie's famous curves made her the self-described "most famous woman of the Russian-speaking Internet." Her photos look plastic, and there have been accusations that she doctors them. But no argument here: Her life-like doll photos have captured the fascination of the Web.

Most Viral Photos: #9 Most retweeted Obama photo

The night of the election, as networks began calling the race for President Obama, his campaign tweeted this photo of the president and first lady Michelle Obama hugging with the caption "four more years." The photo captured the moment and became the most retweeted ever, even surpassing a previous tweet by…wait for it…Justin Bieber. The photo also became the "most liked" on Facebook, receiving over 4.4 million "likes" and counting. The shot, snapped in August by campaign photographer Scout Tufankjian, was taken at a campaign stop in Iowa. The two hadn't seen each other in a couple of days and embraced onstage. The rest is social media history. 

Most Viral Photos: #10 Ridiculously Photogenic Guy

It was a photo taken by chance as a smiling, fresh-faced Zeddie Little ran by photographer Will King, who was there to take pictures of his friends but instead hit viral gold with this perfect shot of a stranger now famous on the Web. The snap of the 25-year-old running a 10K race in Charleston, S.C., shows a smiling competitor looking straight at the camera, the sun glinting through his perfectly coiffed hair and showing his perfect pearly whites. He almost appears to be photobombing the race, so out of place from the rest of the struggling runners. King posted the photo on his Flickr account and then on the website Reddit — and "ridiculously photogenic guy" quickly became a meme. He replaced the Mona Lisa, stood by Mitt Romney, and appeared as a gladiator. As Little told "Good Morning America," "It's the most flattering way to get spread across the Internet."