Local Satirist Retires His 'Little' Online Sensation

The presidential election brought Gov. Mitt Romney’s journey to lead the United States to an end. However, the final second of a local satirist’s 15 minutes of fame also ticked away once the race was called for President Barack Obama.

Recent Menomonee Falls High School graduate, and humorist, Reuben Glaser, brought a few little smiles to folks on the Internet with his brand of Photoshop tricks. Glaser reworked photos of Mitt Romney, and gave him a little face. That's it.

The simple computer trick turned into an Internet sensation, and his photos of Romney with a little face circulated throughout the web with countless other politically charged memes. Glaser’s 'little' Photoshop trick has garnered the attention of Gawker, UPROXX, Buzzfeed, PostSecret, Mother Jones, Funny or Die and MSNBC’s Alex Wagner.

His Facebook page quickly gained more than 13,000 followers, and Glaser even started selling “Little Face Mitt” t-shirts. However, his run to fame ended Nov. 6, and it was time to face the music. Glaser announced Tuesday to his followers that he would no longer doctor photos for amusement.

“Whether you like it or not, Little Face Mitt has descended into complete irrelevancy in one night flat,” Glaser said. “While I find myself totally at a loss and in a state of flux without pictures of Romney’s face to shrink, this is good and this is what I had hoped would happen all along. This gives it a graceful exit.”

Glaser hopes Little Face Mitt will be remembered amongst the sad Big Bird, binders full of women, Romney’s horses and bayonets, Benghazi, Obama’s blame Bush, and other memes of the 2012 election.

“While I don’t expect there to be a Little Face Mitt chapter in future textbooks of course,” Glaser said. “I just take a good deal of pride that such an absurd thing managed to reach so many of you and in some way got people involved.

For those seeking some kind of deeper explanation for Glaser’s brainchild, you’ll be left searching. Glaser explained on his Tumblr.com page - which is also the site of his collection of photos - that the purpose of the project is, “To get people to involuntarily forever see Mitt Romney with a tiny face.”

It isn’t clear what Glaser’s next project will be, but it isn’t the first time he’s entered the political arena as a practical joker. Glaser caused a bit of a stir when he produced Kurt Heins’ campaign video for Waukesha County Clerk. The Waukesha Freeman ran story about the campaign, and flames were further flamed by a blog post on Patch.

When media scrutiny amplified for the upstart Heins campaign, Glaser was was abruptly ‘fired’ from his post as Chief Strategist and Campaign Manager for the Heins campaign. According to a post on the ‘campaign’ page, Glaser was abruptly fired for ‘disobeying’ Mr. Heins in what was called ‘insubordination’.

Glaser and Heins admitted that the whole stunt was a senior prank.