`Big Brother' created this spitting image

A GIF of Elissa Reilly Slater, a onetime contestant on the show that just started its 24th season, has been viewed billions of times

If you’re not one of the approximately 4 million viewers who regularly make time for episodes of the CBS summertime reality show “Big Brother,” you might be inclined to ask: “Are people still watching that?”

They are. Season 24 premiered this month.

But even if you’ve never seen an episode of TV’S ongoing Orwellian social experiment, you’ve almost certainly watched a portion of “Big Brother.”

Albeit in three-second increments on social media. Even if you didn’t realize it.

Because the woman spitting out her drink in the GIF that’s become an internet staple in response to anything funny? That’s not Jennifer Lawrence, as many assume.

“But I’ll be associated with her, an A-list starlet,” joked Elissa Reilly Slater, the actual star of that GIF, a particularly prominent one of the popular visual loops found everywhere on Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, etc.

Reilly Slater is a 36-year-old nurse and fitness and nutrition specialist who lives in North Carolina.

Nine years ago, she also was a contestant on “Big Brother,” the show that records and livestreams just about every movement and utterance of contestants who are trying to outlast each other through week-byweek “evictions.”

As Reilly Slater remembers it, her spit take — that’s Sprite, by the way — was her “very genuine reaction” to being confronted by a fellow houseguest.

“I don’t remember, we may have been talking about her,” Reilly Slater said last week by phone. “It was just so funny. I was drinking Sprite and she was looking at us and I just couldn’t keep it together, and we had the infamous spit take.”

The incident occurred Aug. 24, 2013, according to Big Brother Network, a website that chronicles the ongoings in the “Big Brother” house every season. It’s doubtful Reilly Slater or anyone would have fathomed that the moment would’ve become such a cultural touchstone, viewed more than 5 billion times, according to GIPHY’S counter for the versions of the clip that show up within categories such as “laughing,” and “lol.”

There are other “Big Brother” GIFS that have gone viral too, such as Da’vonne Rogers’ exit in Season 17, which falls under categories such as “Turn Up Reaction” and has been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

Reilly Slater gets the appeal of her GIF: “If you look for other spit takes, it doesn’t seem as genuine.”

And she thinks it’s cool.

“I like that people are getting use out of it,” she said. “It’s fun.” It’s not profitable, though. Despite the ubiquity of her GIF — she pronounces the word with a hard G, as in “giggle,” not “gesture” — Reilly Slater has never made money from it.

And as long as no one is using the GIF commercially, there’s no expectation that a person in a viral GIF or meme would be compensated, explained Mark Mckenna, co-director of UCLA’S Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law.

“Unlike copyright, the right of publicity only gives you a right to control commercial exploitation,” Mckenna said. “And most of the people who are participating in or sharing or creating those memes are not doing it commercially. They’re just posting stuff for fun; they’re not doing it to sell products.

“Social media can make anyone a meme,” Mckenna acknowledged, noting that it’s up to the memed to find ways to capitalize on becoming internet famous.

But the spit take seen round the world is not something Reilly Slater leads with when she’s working with new clients in her role as a sports performance specialist.

And though she’s harnessed the power of social media in other ways, serving as a brand ambassador for a variety of companies, those partnerships can mostly be traced to her time on both “Big Brother” and “The Amazing Race,” on which she appeared with her sister, former “Big Brother” winner Rachel Reilly, in 2019.

“I didn’t include that GIF in any pitching packages, even though I probably should have,” Reilly Slater said, noting that if she had it to do again, she likely would have been more proactive.

“I would have tried to capitalize on it a little more in the beginning,” she said. “Before it became such a hit. Used it on my website and did more interviews about it. I would’ve tried to make it profitable because I haven’t made a dime off of that GIF and it’s kind of annoying.”

Actually seeing herself laughing on loop, though?

The GIF is still fun, Reilly Slater said: “I use it sometimes.”