VIDEO: Unusual People Made Famous by the Internet

Though not always for positive reasons, viral sensations can happen overnight, whether they intended to be noticed or not.

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We’ve learned that nothing is completely concealable — whether that’s a Snapchat or government documents. Put anything online and it instantly becomes a contender for the Internet to chew up and spit out. Pop culture continued to merge with web culture, making an audience for potential Internet stars that’s stronger and larger than ever.

Sophia Amoruso is probably the best example of how you can find fame online and build an empire through the Internet.

According to Wikipedia, Amoruso was born in San Diego, California, in 1984. She is of Greek, Italian, and Portuguese descent. She was raised in the Greek Orthodox church. After being diagnosed with depression and attention deficit disorder (ADD) in her adolescence, she dropped out of school and began homeschooling.

Her first job as a teenager was at a Subway restaurant, followed by various odd jobs, including working in a bookstore and a record shop. After high school, her parents divorced and she moved to Sacramento, California.

As a young adult, Amoruso lived a nomadic lifestyle, hitchhiking on the west coast, dumpster diving, and stealing. In 2003, while living in Portland, Oregon, she was caught stealing; the loss-prevention department of the store fined her and the experience led her to stop stealing.

She left Portland and relocated to San Francisco, shortly after which she discovered she had a hernia in her groin, which necessitated her purchasing health insurance for required medical treatments. While attending community college, she worked in the Academy of Art University lobby checking student IDs.

At age 23 while working as a security guard at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University, Amoruso opened an online eBay store, which she called Nasty Gal Vintage, named after the 1975 album by funk singer and style icon Betty Davis. The store consisted of used vintage clothing and other items.

The first item she sold was a book she had stolen as a teenager. She styled, photographed, captioned, and shipped the products herself using what she was taught in a photography class.

Amoruso claims to have been banned from eBay in 2008 for posting hyperlinks in feedback to customers and launched Nasty Gal as its own retail website. She has previously said that she left voluntarily because of the rules preventing sellers from leaving negative feedback for customers. Amoruso was also accused of artificially inflating bids, which she has denied.

Nasty Gal developed a devoted online following of young women on social media. It quickly grew with revenues increasing from $223,000 in 2008 to almost $23 million in 2011. The New York Times has called her “a Cinderella of tech”. In 2013, Inc. Magazine named her to its 30 under 30 list. Also in 2013, Business Insider named Sophia Amoruso one of the sexiest CEOs alive.

In 2014, Amoruso’s autobiography #GIRLBOSS was published by Portfolio, a Penguin imprint that specializes in books about business. In 2016, it was announced that Netflix would be adapting her autobiography into a television series called Girlboss.