Saturday, June 14, 2025

February 23, 2015

The Laser Cat Yearbook Photo Internet Sensation Guy Killed Himself

It's sad when the good guys fall, especially when they have hearts of gold and wouldn't hurt a fly, and especially when they even got to be on Ellen.

You remember this guy, don’t you? It’s Draven Rodriguez, he of yearbook cat + laser photo fame.

Basically this photo went completely viral.

Sadly, though, the 17-year old high school student was found dead on Thursday. His parents have said it was suicide.

The story of the photo, though?

Draven had the photo taken for his high school yearbook, but school officials said the photo could not be used as his yearbook image. He then “worked out a compromise” with the principal “who agreed to publish the photo on her page, so long as she was included in it – along with her chihuahua and a message in support of animal rescue.”

Why did he have the photo taken?

He wanted to be remembered “for who I was, a very vibrant, very intense personality you can say I have. I’m very humorous. I try to be very witty and I thought it would almost be a good statement, like, ‘Yeah, only Draven would really do that.'”

[Source: The Huffington Post]