Watch your back, Steph Curry. You've got a new rival. And—get this—he's only 10 months old!
Meet Landon Lee Benton. The adorable little boy with the huge smile and head full of curls has more than 45,000 followers on Instagram, where he's been dubbed "Stuff Curry" for his likeness to the Warriors point guard.
It may sound kinda cute now, but the nickname started out as a mean-spirited joke, when a stranger took one of the little boy's photos off Instagram and posted it to his own feed with the "Stuff Curry" caption. Other commenters then chimed in with their own fat-shaming comments.
Heartbreaking! Even worse: When Landon's mom Jessica found out about the account and reached out to the user to ask that the photo be taken down, she was promptly blocked.
Can you even imagine? How miserable does a person have to be to bully a little boy?
Strangers were calling Landon a "fatass" and publicly questioning Jessica's parenting skills. But what none of them knew was that the Texas mom also had a 20-year-old son who was bullied in high school and committed suicide while she was pregnant with Landon.
"I have a son who's not here with me," she told ABC News. "When you have a child who has passed from suicide you think of all the things you could have done differently. I go back to when he told me in 11th grade that kids at school were saying mean things about him. I gave him the mom pep talk to ignore them. You never know the one or two comments that could've changed something."
Which is why Jessica decided to take control of the current situation in order to turn it into something positive. She ordered a "Stuff Curry" jersey to embrace the meme, and onesies that say things like "I came out like a wrecking ball" and "Rock Your Rolls." And—haters be damned—she keeps on posting her son's pictures.
Jessica told BuzzFeed that the response has been amazing. "I get messages from people who told me that they were having a really bad day, but then they saw a picture of Landon and it brightened up their day," she said, adding that she's also received messages from victims of bullying who have been inspired by the way she turned a negative situation into a positive one.
Steph Curry may play for Golden State, Jessica, but we think it's pretty clear that you're the real warrior!
Hollee Actman Becker is a freelance writer, blogger, and a mom. Check out her website holleeactmanbecker.com for more, and then follow her on twitter at @holleewoodworld.
