A viral Reddit post about his Apple business card turned Sam Sung into an internet joke — and eventually led him to change his name.

36-year-old Sam Struan is a pretty average guy. He lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and works as a consultant and resume writer.

But he wasn't always Sam Struan. And, for a brief moment in 2012, he experienced an anything-but-average rise to fame.

Struan wasn't born Sam Struan. He was born Sam Sung.

"Growing up, I received a few silly comments or playground chants about my name, Sam Sung, but nothing like what happened in my early 20s." Struan tells Business Insider.

For a while, he worked at the Apple Store in Glasgow, occasionally getting ribbed for being Sam Sung working at Apple. That would change when he moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Struan recalls the day everything changed.

While working at another part-time gig, his phone began ringing nonstop. Upon checking his phone, he learned that he had gone viral on Reddit — a website he'd never heard of.

He wrote it off as a scam text at first. It wasn't until later, when he saw he had missed several calls from the Apple Store, that he realized the scale of what had happened.

Someone had posted a picture of his Apple business card on Reddit. And, as seemingly minor things on Reddit tend to do, it blew up.

Apple got in contact with Struan to ask if he knew about the post. It then proceeded to pull him off the shop floor and revoke his access to his business cards.

The store was flooded with people and phone calls inquiring if Sam Sung worked there. Fortunately for Struan, his Scottish accent provided decent cover for phone calls.

Struan says that the whole ordeal only lasted a few months. It was an unpleasant few months just the same.

"...I was so scared, and I just wanted to keep my head down and stay employed," he says.

In 2013, Straun left his job at the Apple Store to pursue a career in recruitment.

In 2014, he auctioned off a business card and some assorted bits of his uniform for charity. The card sold for more than $2,500, which went to Children's Wish.

Shortly after, Straun weighed the pros and cons of keeping his name. He didn't want to be known as an internet joke.

And, as someone trying to build his own brand, sharing a name with a highly visible, multinational company presented its own problems. All the online handles that he'd want to use were already taken.

So, he decided to make the change.

"After some consideration, I chose to adopt the last name Struan because it's the name of one of my favorite places in Scotland — a village on the Isle of Skye," he says.

He also says that there are benefits to having an anglicized last name. Having certain names confers better job opportunities.

So, while he doesn't regret the change, he does wish he had enjoyed it more.

"... I wish I could tell my younger self to see it as a funny thing. Not to stress out about my job because it was fine," he remarks.

"I wish I'd just chilled out a bit about it and been less worried about job security and potential work opportunities, and enjoyed it for what it was."

He would go on to later attempt to auction another business card in August 2022.