Hide The Pain Harold

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Unless you have been living under a rock, then you have had to have seen the stock photos of who the internet named “Hide The Pain Harold“. There are hundreds of stock photos of “Harold” out there and there are about 100 different stories as well.

The most popular and earliest (around 2011) folklore is that the senior gentleman posing for the stock photos has a facial expression that appears that he might be suppressing pain or discomfort, thus the name “Hide the Pain…”

Stories of “Harold” grew as more and more stock photos of him surfaced online.

A Youtuber named ChinnyxD created and uploaded a video of dozens of “Harold” stock photos that is narriated with a text-to-speech voice.

Will The Real Harold Please Stand Up

On March 3rd, 2016, 70-year-old Hungarian electrical engineer András Arató from Budapest, identified himself as the man in the stock photos dubbed “Hide the Pain Harold”. A few days later a video was uploaded showing Arató on a Hungarian game show. Arató was the subject of a single photoshoot in the early 2010s. That photo shoot consisted of hundreds of photos, and that turned into more photo shoots and hundreds of more photos, and many of them today, have been made into memes.

Know Your Meme published an 8-minute video on who is “Hide the Pain Harold”. This interview-style video is 100% narrated by András Arató himself, telling his story and who he is in real life.

A YouTuber “smillmf” uploaded a video in which Arató visits Manchester, England to watch a football game.

TEDx speech - TEDx Kyiv

In 2019, he gave a TED Talk for TEDxKyiv. Today, Arató said he is always happy to stop and pose for selfies with fans. Arató has since started enjoying his internet fame and has starred in a Coca-cola commercial and an ENO Fruit Salt commercial, as well as commercials for products like Zatecky Gus Rubinovy. He was on the local version of The Masked Singer, being revealed in episode three.