It started with a business card.
In 2012, a 20-something Apple Store employee in Vancouver, British Colombia, handed one to a customer. It was an ordinary interaction that, within hours, would put his name in front of thousands of strangers online.
“My friend texted me, ‘You went viral on Reddit,’” Sam Struan , 37, tells TODAY.com. At the time, he was working at Apple under the name Sam Sung. It was a detail the internet quickly latched onto, given that the similarly-named South Korean company makes a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone. Struan didn’t click the link. He had never even heard of Reddit and assumed it was a joke.
The business card that set off an unexpected viral moment in 2012.Courtesy Sam Straun
But as the image spread, the attention quickly spilled into real life. The store’s phones began ringing nonstop — call after call from people asking for Sam Sung — until managers pulled him aside. New to Vancouver after moving from his native Scotland, he says he was “terrified” he might lose his job.
Soon, reporters began showing up, trying to get a comment. Bound by company policy, he declined, offering only polite refusals. He was eventually moved off the sales floor, answering phones and working in the stockroom, as the attention continued.
At the time, going viral didn’t carry the same familiarity it does today. Struan wasn’t trying to build an audience or capitalize on the attention. Instead, he tried to disappear from it. He deleted his social media accounts and kept his head down at work, unsure how far the moment might travel or what it could mean for his future.
To his relief, the interest eventually died down, but the name — and what it had come to represent — did not. A few years later, as he tried to establish himself professionally, he made a decision: he would change it.
He chose one that still felt rooted in who he was. Struan is a Scottish name, as well as the name of a village on the Isle of Skye, a place he had visited often and associated with some of his best memories. It also shares three letters with his original name — S, U and N — a coincidence he describes as “a lovely one.”
Sam Struan auctioned off one of the original business cards, along with his old Apple shirt and lanyard, raising thousands of dollars for a children’s charity in Vancouver.Courtesy Sam Straun
The name choice was always a practical one. By then, Struan was working in recruiting and building a resume-writing business, where a name is part of the brand. His original name, he says, was already taken in more ways than one. “I was never going to be samsung.com.”
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