Meme Origins: LeBron James I Can’t Believe This Is My Life

Several NBA stars have contributed immensely to the thriving meme culture we have on social media. Be it Michael Jordan’s crying face meme or Shaquille O’Neal’s hiding behind a tree meme, the biggest stars of the league have done their part for the trend. Another very popular meme that stems from the hoop world features LeBron James. King James standing on the edge of a pool with one hand on his forehead and smiling from ear to ear is a template that has birthed countless memes. So, let’s trace the origin of it.

LeBron boasts a massive following of 238 million on social media if we combine the numbers from his Instagram, X, and Facebook. The popular meme template is known as ‘Can’t Believe This My Life / LeBron Smiling’ and the meme originated from LeBron’s activities on his social media. The original picture was posted by King James in 2018 and it has been relevant ever since.

lebron james in pool smiling through it all can’t believe this my life pic.twitter.com/45S3oZR1SN

— reactions (@reactjpg) May 27, 2020

The story behind the picture relates to Donald Trump’s tenure as the President of the United States. At the time, several NBA players, including LeBron were speaking out against the Trump administration. As influential members of the community, the players were of the opinion that Trump’s presidency and the policies promoted by his administration weren’t right for the community.

However, the advocacy was received negatively in the conservative media space. Laura Ingraham of Fox News gave some ‘advice’ to the NBA players, especially LeBron James, after their comments gained traction. She told the players to “Shut up and dribble.”

Needless to say, there was a lot of outrage about her comments. But King James won the Internet subsequently with a subtle response. He posted his aforementioned picture on Instagram with the caption, “Smiling through it all! Can’t believe this my life.” Many people believed that it was in response to Ingraham’s comments. And soon after that, a legendary meme was born.

Since then, the meme template has been used to address several topics. One of the first viral renditions of it was posted on Reddit when a Redditor put the caption, “When the MRI comes back negative” over it. After that, it has been used to express sadness, shock, happiness and a lot of other emotions.