--- title: The Original 'Damn Daniel' Video Has Been Deleted by Hackers description: Daniel Lara, a.k.a. "Damn Daniel," became the biggest meme of 2016 when a video of him and his white Vans recently went hugely viral. canonical: https://time.com/4241858/original-damn-daniel-video-deleted-hackers/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-29T20:55:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:30:35.181Z og:title: The Original 'Damn Daniel' Video Has Been Deleted by Hackers og:description: #getthevideoback og:url: https://time.com/4241858/original-damn-daniel-video-deleted-hackers/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Original 'Damn Daniel' Video Has Been Deleted by Hackers twitter:description: #getthevideoback twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Original 'Damn Daniel' Video Has Been Deleted by Hackers > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=12ee9507-9203-42b0-b2bf-8394fc0fb4d1&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Feb 29, 2016 8:55 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Feb 29, 2016 8:55 PM UTC > [](https://twitter.com/Josholzz/status/704197015022891008) Daniel Lara, a.k.a. “Damn Daniel,” became the biggest meme of 2016 (so far) when a video of him and his [white Vans](http://time.com/4235380/damn-daniel-ellen-vans/) recently went [hugely viral](http://time.com/3956080/viral-videos-money/). Footage of Lara wearing a variety of outfits was posted to Twitter by his friend Joshua Holz — who also provided the hilariously bizarre voice that narrates the clip — and brought the two teens almost [overnight online fame](http://time.com/4237512/damn-daniel-viral-video-remix/). The tweet received hundreds of thousands of retweets and millions of views, and earned the two boys an appearance on _The Ellen DeGeneres Show_. **Read More:** [The ‘Damn Daniel’ Viral Twitter Video Is the Internet’s Latest Obsession](http://time.com/4232465/damn-daniel-viral-twitter-video-white-vans/) Unfortunately, the original video was deleted on Sunday when Holz’s account was hacked. Those who took control of his page also posted several tweets containing racist content that have since been removed. > [](https://twitter.com/Ned%5FDonovan/status/704061426688720902) Holz regained control of the account early Monday morning and started hashtag #getthevideoback. He also posted an apology to his 164,000 followers. “Got my account back,” he wrote. “\[There\] are some really sick people out there and I’m sorry you guys had to see all that.” > [](https://twitter.com/Josholzz/status/704195760191963136) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4241858/original-damn-daniel-video-deleted-hackers/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4241858/original-damn-daniel-video-deleted-hackers/"},"headline":"The Original 'Damn Daniel' Video Has Been Deleted by Hackers","datePublished":"2016-02-29T20:55:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:30:35.181Z","description":"#getthevideoback","url":"https://time.com/4241858/original-damn-daniel-video-deleted-hackers/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","hackers","memes"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4241858/original-damn-daniel-video-deleted-hackers/","name":"The Original 'Damn Daniel' Video Has Been Deleted by Hackers"}}]}] ```