Last week this footballer had 4,000 followers. Now he has over 3 million.
The comms lessons from the World Cup's most unlikely viral moment.
The internet is a magical place.
It was the internet, after all, that once crashed a website because too many people wanted to name a British research vessel "Boaty McBoatface.” It can turn a nobody into somebody in a matter of hours.
Well, the internet has once again ‘done its thing’ and produced another unlikely hero in New Zealand footballer Tim Payne.
Payne’s online presence exploded after ‘elscarso’, an Argentine content creator with a flair for football mischief — took to Instagram and started scrolling through every World Cup squad looking for the player with the fewest followers.
After what we can only imagine was a deeply scientific research process, he lands on Tim Payne: Wellington Phoenix defender, 32-year-old All Whites mainstay and proud owner of a perfectly respectable 4,715 Instagram followers.
The goal? To make him the most famous player at the tournament. The reason? None other than to make him the most famous player at the World Cup.
Six million views later, it’s clear to say that goal was achieved.
Tim Payne is a global phenomenon. Duolingo, Tim Horton, and many other brands are piling into the comments.
He’s become so popular that his follower count has eclipsed New Zealand’s national icons, including the holy grail of New Zealand sport in our All Blacks official account.
Then, from New Zealander himself, comes the response video.
“Was wondering why my socials were blowing up and found your post, man. Appreciate the love! Gracias, hermano. Please excuse my Spanish — I’m still practicing on Duolingo.” — Tim Payne, via Instagram
It may have been unscripted, filmed in one take without a ring light, and delivered in clumsy yet very respectable A1 level Spanish. But it worked — and more importantly, there’s a reason it worked. Understanding that reason is the difference between a comms team that gets lucky and one that’s actually prepared.
Today on SportsYarn, we’re breaking down the comms lessons from Tim’s viral moment. Let’s go.
The internet doesn’t care about your media strategy
No comms professional — no matter how many crisis demos they’ve run, how many stakeholders maps they’ve drawn, or holding lines they’ve prepared — could have planned for this. And that’s the first lesson.
The JD of a professional footballer does not typically include “maintain readiness for overnight social media superstardom at the direction of a foreign content creator.” Yet here we are.
The internet is increasingly doing things to people — athletes, brands, individuals — that are completely outside what we’ve considered normal, let alone preparable for.
Viral moments now arrive without a 48-hour grace period to get your spokesperson briefed. What used to be called a ‘PR opportunity’ can now materialise and peak before you’ve even figured out what it was in the first place.
Comms principle one: It’s the response that counts:
Being ‘chronically online’ is no longer just the flex of gen Z accounts and meme pages. At any moment, the internet can point at anyone and decide they matter. Preparedness isn’t about predicting the moment. It’s about being able to respond well when it arrives.
He got the response right, and almost instinctively
Tim Payne had never been trained for this. He’s a right-back from Wellington, not a media-polished Premier League export with a dedicated social team. And yet his response was textbook.
First, he was authentic and unguarded. He admitted he didn’t know what was happening. That vulnerability not only makes us root from him, but in today’s weird AI world, it removes any suspicion that this is a manufactured moment.
Second, he was grateful without being over the top. He thanked Scarsini directly and acknowledged the broader community that had rallied around him.
Third — and this is the detail that will live rent-free in comms professionals’ heads — he made the Duolingo joke. He didn’t pretend to speak Spanish. He acknowledged the gap, turned it into a laugh, and in doing so, made Duolingo itself comment. A brand getting organically pulled into a moment because the person in a viral moment referenced them? That’s accidental genius, and it’s the kind of thing you genuinely cannot recreate.
Comms principle two - Respond like a human:
When a viral wave hits, the worst thing you can do is respond stiffly or slowly. A warm, self-aware response beats any polished statement. The internet can smell corporate spin from three continents away, including Argentina.
The window is short, but the options are real
Tim Payne has, at my last check, 3.1 million followers. He now also has a World Cup group stage to navigate, and the warm glow of one of the most unlikely feel-good stories in recent sporting memory.
Assuming Tim wants to take them, the next steps should be taken carefully. Done without ruining the thing that made everyone care in the first place.
Good comms here means building on the authenticity and not looking like you’re out for a quick cash grab off the back of your five seconds.
Here’s what I’d look to do if I was Tim:
Release a proper Spanish-language thank you video.
Lean into the Duolingo bit. Even if he fumbles a little throughout, it shows genuine effort and respect for the audience. It’ll deepen loyalty rather than just harvesting it. Not to mention they’re the reason you’re here.
Let the football do the talking.
Every minute he’s on the pitch against Iran on June 16 is a content moment. The crowd that built the legend will be watching to see if it holds. Don’t overshadow that with a premature merch drop, or worse, a podcast just to discuss that moment.
Bonus obscure option: reach out to Argentina’s Football Association.
Propose a post-tournament social content piece — a day-in-the-life in Buenos Aires, shot in Spanish with subtitles and make the intercultural connection the story. Bring Messi in! It’s something New Zealand Football already did when our centre back, Finn Surmann played his club team, Inter Miami.
In short, it’s unprecedented for a World Cup squad player from a minnow nation to gain this kind of fame and it would extend the cultural bridge that ‘elscarso’ built for free.
What can we learn from those who bravely ‘memed’ before
Anyone who’s been on the World Wide Web knows that meme culture isn’t exactly hidden online. Internet heroes, from Northern Irish strikers to a dog owned by a Japanese kindergarten teacher have all held the limelight before Tim.
But for those who’ve bravely trodden the path of internet stardom, here’s what he could learn from them:
Viral fame without a single minute of game time (Will Grigg at Euro 2016)
Northern Ireland’s Will Grigg became arguably the most talked-about player at Euro 2016 because of a chant — “Will Grigg’s on fire, your defense is terrified” — set to a 1996 Eurodance banger.
Will didn’t even play a single minute. The chant became a commercial single that charted, a charity fundraiser and arguably the cultural football moment of 2016. The lesson, and to his credit, Grigg rode the wave gracefully but admitted later that being reduced to a meme was occasionally frustrating. He’d wanted credit for his 25 League One goals, not just his name in a song.
So while, Tim’s version is kinder — the love is directed at him specifically and not just for the luck of having his name fitting a tune — the window is the same. Act in it.
What happens when you don’t control the narrative at all — Kabosu (the Doge dog)
In 2010, Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato posted a photo of her Shiba Inu, Kabosu, sitting on a sofa with crossed paws and a deeply curious expression. Three years later it had become the Doge meme. A decade after that, it had inspired a $23 billion cryptocurrency and even briefly become the logo of X.
Sato found out about all of this slowly, over years, with no communications strategy whatsoever. She handled it with warmth and grace — but the value created around her dog’s image largely flowed elsewhere. The lesson for Tim: the internet gave you this. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a plan for where it goes.
Comms principle three- Act now:
Viral moments have a half-life if that. The window in which it’s legitimately convertible is shorter than you think. The brands already in the comments — Duolingo, Tim Hortons— are not there for no reason. They’re harvesting attention. Tim and his team should too.
The takeaway for everyone who isn’t Tim Payne
If you work in communications, whether in sports or corporate, Tim Payne’s story is your reminder that the next viral moment is something you can’t just schedule. You can’t predict which Argentine influencer will select your client as the centrepiece of the internet’s next collective project.
What you can control is the response: a clear decision, made by a real voice that acknowledges the situation you’ve found yourself in. As the comms professional, you’ll want to recognise that there’s a difference between riding a wave and manufacturing one. Get it wrong and you’ll find out pretty quickly.
But Tim didn’t get it wrong, and in a sporting world that’s becoming increasingly more polished and fuller of cliches, watching the ‘World’s Most Famous Footballer’ look down a camera and say gracias, hermano while joking about his rusty Spanish to millions of strangers, well, it was a welcome sight.
A welcome sight of character and authenticity — something you can’t brief your way to — but you can absolutely ensure that you allow it to shine.
And the best way to do that? Start a Duolingo streak - it worked for Tim after all.
This is an incredible piece on how to handle a massive viral moment, not only from the media but also from an athlete's perspective! You are spot on: not only is the phenomenon driven by a highly organic, non-fabricated event, but the athlete also has to know how to respond in a satisfying and timely way.
The way this tapped into World Cup fan behavior (like saving your Tim Payne sticker as a collectible) really speaks to how momentum is built.
The only thing I have to disagree with is the idea that Tim should reach out to the AFA. There are so many layers to this. First, the phenomenon started with an Argentine streamer and a primarily Argentine audience. Right now, the AFA is facing a lot of local scrutiny from both a sports and political standpoint. In my opinion, bringing them in would ruin the exact magic that caused the phenomenon in the first place. Second, because the AFA is the massive, mainstream football institution here, the organic, collective participation of the fans is what actually generates that sense of community pride. Adding the AFA to the equation would completely dilute that feeling.
Tim's video worked so well precisely because it felt spontaneous. The second you force the "mainstream" into the conversation, it starts to look fabricated.
Anyway, congratulations! It’s an amazing piece, and I absolutely loved reading it