This is Leon Mitchell II, a 31-year-old man living in Tacoma, Washington. He's a survivor of a rare form of cancer called nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Mitchell told BuzzFeed that he was diagnosed in 2005 at the age of 20 and described his diagnosis as a type of "head and neck cancer."
In December of 2015, people began using a photo of Mitchell on social media with the caption "Meth Curry," and an unpleasant meme was born.
The meme materialized after people compared Mitchell's thin neck area with the frail frame of longtime users of methamphetamine, and his resemblance to basketball player Stephen Curry.
Stephen Curry pictured on the right
The memes were rampant on social media, but they flourished on Twitter especially.
Mitchell told BuzzFeed that when he found out about the meme, he described his feeling as being "a little bit embarrassing, humiliating, and a bit hurtful at the same time."
After finding out, Mitchell took to Instagram to post a heartfelt message.
Since his Instagram post, Mitchell has received support from people warning others about sharing photos on social media without context.
Yall need to think about other people feeling before yall try to be funny for retweets
For those of you who think the #MethCurry meme is funny over a cancer survivor's likeness to @StephenCurry30. #KNOE
Rapper Fabolous shared Mitchell's Instagram post on his Facebook page.
"The thing that I think is most important to tell people (is that) the effects these types of things can have on a person is monumental!" Mitchell told Buzzfeed.
