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Impossible Is Nothing is a 2006 video résumé by Aleksey Vayner (formerly Aleksey Garber, died January 23, 2013) which became an Internet meme.
Contents
History of job application
In October 2006, Yale University student Aleksey Vayner applied for a job with UBS, an investment bank. Amused by Vayner's apparent puffery, an unknown member of UBS staff emailed his application materials to other investment banks. The video was posted on various blogs, then YouTube, where it became an immense viral Internet phenomenon.
Summary
The video opens with an apparently scripted interview between Vayner and an offscreen voice, which consists of a single question, to which Vayner gives a lengthy response. Using considerable amounts of business jargon, Vayner praises himself and shares his various insights on success, talent, and overcoming adversity. Interspliced with the interview are clips of Vayner performing various feats, including bench pressing, skiing, playing tennis, ballroom dancing, and karate-chopping a stack of bricks. The video ends with a dedication to Radomir Kovačević and a credits sequence.
Features
Vayner's job application includes:
Dispute with IvyGate
Legal threats by Vayner against UBS, YouTube, and various blogs did not slow its progress, and only provided further fodder, subject to the Internet Streisand effect. One blog, IvyGate, became famous from its disputes with Vayner. When Vayner emailed a cease-and-desist letter demanding that IvyGate remove "Impossible is Nothing" links from its website, the blog instead published the threat and taunted Vayner to sue them. In further investigating the incident IvyGate learned and published that:
Other details
Other investigating publications learned that Vayner has variously claimed the following
Rumpus Magazine, a Yale University tabloid, had already exposed Vayner as a possible fake before attending Yale.
Aftermath and development of meme
The Internet meme surrounding "Impossible Is Nothing" spread in typical fashion: by word of mouth on blogs and by Internet, then covered both as a meme and a human interest story by major newspapers, which further accelerated growth. After the first phase of popularity, blog posters and others began adding their own fanciful contributions to Vayner's legend. These include several classic meme features:
Vayner did not receive a job offer from UBS or any other bank. He took a leave of absence from Yale.
Subsequent work
In January 2008, Vayner set up a website promoting his book, Millionaires' Blueprint to Success.
Cracked.com, an Internet humor site, pointed out that his book is extremely similar in layout and content to a book titled Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker in their article "Where Are They Now: Six "Stars" From Embarrassing Viral Videos," about the aftermath of several viral videos.
Vayner appeared in Winnebago Man, a 2009 documentary about Jack Rebney, whose profanity-laced outtakes from a Winnebago industrial film also became an internet meme. In it, Vayner discusses his video resume and seems to accept that his unwelcomed fame is simply a part of who he is.
Death
On 23 January 2013, the Ivy League blog IvyGate reported, and Gawker.com later confirmed, that Vayner had died of unknown causes. A relative later said he had been told Vayner apparently had a heart attack after taking medicine of some kind.