Keanu Reeves. He’s the star of The Matrix Trilogy, Speed, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and many others. He’s known by the media as a pretty good guy. He even donated a portion of his salary from working on The Matrix to all the people behind the scenes. According to the internet, however, he is also a very depressed man.

In early May of 2010, some paparazzi photographer got a photo of Keanu sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich. The main thing that attracted people to this picture was Keanu’s disappointed look. In the photo, he has a sullen look on his face as he stares at the ground.

As soon as it got posted on Reddit, photoshoppers at once went crazy with the photo, and began photoshopping depressed Keanu into various historical events, movie scenes, and pretty much anything else they can get their hands on.

But Reeves’ popularity on the web didn’t stop there. This photo began to cause people to feel sympathetic to Keanu. Several threads popped up on Reddit, like “Instead of Chuck Norris, let’s make Keanu Reeves a meme.”

One user even said, “If you want to truly honor Keanu Reeves, don’t do it by imitating Neo, do it by imitating Keanu Reeves. He donates money to fund cancer research.”

Keanu was spreading like wildfire across the web. That is, until usage of the image became illegal. On June 18, SadKeanu.com received a DMCA takedown notice from Splash News, the company that owns the photo, and all the fan-submitted Keanu photos were taken down.

But Keanu-mania still thrives. A Facebook event was created called “Cheer Up Keanu Day”. Participants are encouraged to celebrate “Cheer Up Keanu Day” by sending him fan mail or making cancer donations.

Keanu has stated himself that he kind of wishes that photo had never been taken, but the results of Keanu-Mania aren’t all bad. On June 17, 2011, he released a book; Ode to Happiness.