Long before internet memes became a combination of Twitch fails and brainrot numbers, there was "Boom Goes the Dynamite."

In 2005, a nervous Ball State University student named Brian Collins became a reluctant internet legend after he fumbled through a live student newscast so spectacularly that it could only be described as watching a car crash in slow motion.

It was bad enough that the NBA segment Collins flubbed was broadcast to his whole school, but one smart aleck screen-recorded the whole ordeal and submitted it to eBaum's World for the whole world to see, ultimately transforming it into a meme.

So, how does one recover from the most mortifying three minutes of their life? Here's a look at Brian Collins after the fame, as well as the creation of the meme back in the day.

Who is Brian Collins, and What's the 'Boom Goes the Dynamite' Meme?

In March 2005, Ball State University (BSU) freshman Brian Collins stepped in for a sick sportscaster on Newslink@9, the university’s student-run broadcast in Muncie, Indiana. It was his first time anchoring on camera, a fact you wouldn't know judging from the way he held it together for the start of the segment, polite, albeit a little stilted.

He was running through the results of the BSU women's softball game when, judging by Collins' quiet, "Oh no," something went terribly wrong.

What followed was three minutes and 54 seconds of false starts, disjointed sentences and dead air cut with sports footage that Collins was unable to narrate by the time he reached the night's NBA coverage of the Indiana Pacers vs. New Jersey Nets.

As Pacers guard Fred Jones sank a three-pointer with 2:03 left in the first quarter, Collins ad-libbed the line that would outlive him, "He gets the rebound and passes to the man, shoots it. And boom goes the dynamite."

It was a line delivered with the deadpan finality of a man who knew he was doomed no matter what, but it also became an example of the accidental brilliance that sometimes emerges from under extreme pressure.

The clip hit eBaum's World on April 1st, 2005, and then YouTube soon after. Within months, the broadcast became one of the earliest viral memes on the web.

But as people soon found out, Brian Collins' accidental filibuster wasn't entirely his fault. Turns out, the teleprompter operator was also new, and he was accidentally fast-forwarding all the lines Collins was trying to read.

To make matters worse, the typewritten backup script in front of Collins was all in the wrong order, and the random shuffling you hear in the background of the viral video was him trying to make sense of things.

What's the Backstory Behind the 'Boom Goes the Dynamite' Clip, and How Did Brian Collins React to Going Viral?

When the segment ended, the newsroom went silent. "We all just kind of were stunned, to be honest," college meteorologist Joe Thomas told the college paper, Ball State Daily News. "No one really knew what to say. We all felt really bad for what happened."

Still, Brian Collins handled it better than many early meme figures and didn't launch a bevy of lawsuits, fight against it or become a recluse. Instead, he leaned on friends and professors for support.

In fact, the incident led Collins to land an unexpected fan. ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt emailed him to reassure him that, "If this is the worst thing that ever happens to you, life will be good."

Van Pelt wasn't the only one to adopt the line on a live segment over the years either.

Here's a clip of sports commentator Bob Costas dropping the line during his coverage of the 2009 USGA golf tournament, and another clip of Will Smith dropping the line while reading off a teleprompter during the 2009 Oscars.

What Did Brian Collins Do With His Viral Fame in the Years After the Clip?

By June 2009, Brian Collins graduated from Ball State and was popping up on actual network TV again, this time by invitation.

On The Early Show, he told anchor Hannah Storm the phrase had started during Mario Kart tournaments with his roommates, "We try to create things that will mess each other up, and we mostly try to make people laugh. And part of that is you create catchphrases. And, obviously, 'boom goes the dynamite' was one of mine."

He then interned with the Indianapolis local news station WTHR-TV, then reported on crime and metro beats for KXXV, the ABC affiliate in Waco, Texas.

By 2011, Collins was working as a local journalist for KSAX in Alexandria, Minnesota, with one YouTube clip showing Collins giving a steadfast report in what appears to be a classic Minnesota blizzard.

What's Brian Collins Up to These Days, and Where Can I Find Him Online?

In 2011, Brian Collins resurfaced for a Tosh.0 "Web Redemption" segment, a known rite of passage for early internet icons.

A surprisingly young-looking Collins spoke with Daniel Tosh about how he'd been working as a freelance journalist for years with the calm authority of someone who's answered every imaginable question about his three-minute ordeal.

Besides his 2010s appearances and a barely updated LinkedIn page, Collins has kept a relatively low social media presence online in recent years, so perhaps he's chosen to keep a low profile since the heyday of his viral meme.

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For the full history of Brian Collins AKA the "Boom Goes the Dynamite", be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information. To see the rest of our "Where Are They Now" series, you can find them all here. Stay tuned for next week's editorial!

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