This grumpy grandmother walked away from viral fame - now she's back to defend her throne from a copycat

An English grandmother who was an internet sensation in 2013 is coming out of retirement after a copycat started stealing her photos and passing them off as his own.

Jean Nokes became a Twitter sensation when her grandson, Jaime Nokes, began balancing random objects on top of her head and photographing the results. But when people began stopping her in the street for selfies, they decided to stop the project, BuzzFeed's Ryan Broderick reports.

Now, there's a copycat account called Thingsonmygrandma stealing Nokes' pictures. The copycat has even more followers than the original, with over 66,000 followers to Nokes' 33,000.

"It's really weird they have gained more followers than the original account," Nokes told BuzzFeed.

The grandmother-grandson team is now striking back, reclaiming their territory as internet superstars. 

 

 

The story begins in 2013, when Jaime Nokes (pictured below) was an 18-year-old living in Manchester, England. He began tweeting images of random objects balanced on his grandmother's head. 

 

 

The Twitter account went viral, attracting tens of thousands of followers. 

 

Twitter users quickly fell in love with his grandmother, Jean. She's said she finds the internet "daft," according to BuzzFeed.

 

 

After a two-year hiatus, Nokes began to post new pictures of things on his nan in April. 

 

 

Now that he's decided to start up the account again, he plans to "do more pictures and watermark them," BuzzFeed reports.

 

He recently created an Instagram account for Things on my Nan, and it's a big hit. He regularly receives thousands of likes on his posts.

 

Once again, internet users are obsessed with Jean, her nightgown and the random objects on top of her head. Nokes' Twitter account currently has 38,700 followers, and his Instagram account has 22,000. 

 

 

Two weeks ago, Nokes asked his followers to submit edited photos with new objects placed on top of his nan.

"Send me your edits of my nan lol, I run out of things, I was planning on putting an actual car on her but I don't think she could handle that," he wrote in an Instagram comment. 

 

 

Although Thingsonmynan has a devoted fan base, Nokes has received some criticism for using his grandmother to achieve internet fame.

"I don't see her laughing and neither am I..." someone wrote to Nokes, according to his Twitter account. "On almost all of those pics she looks clearly 'out of it' to me."

 

 

But Nokes says his grandmother enjoys being in the photos.

"Nan's not bothered, she finds it funny," he told The Sun in 2013.