KYM Review: Sports Memes of 2016

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

---

early everything about 2016 was Bad, except for sports, which were Extremely Good. It was a year of broken curses, stunning upsets, the impossible becoming possible, and hell freezing over in various other ways. In 2016, sports memes were regularly referenced by the White House. Sports snark came deeply into its own in 2016, particularly at Deadspin, which is now the strongest Gawker affiliate thanks to a fake sports star, one Hulk Hogan. All of my favorite sports teams sucked hard, but even that was okay, because there were some prime memes to get me through. Here's a look back at some of the best sports goofs that got us through 2016.

The Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead

The 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors were arguably the greatest team in NBA history. They beat the Chicago Bulls record for the most wins in a single season, finishing the year at an astonishing 73-9. They had the league's first unanimous MVP in Stephen Curry, who shattered records as easily as he hit 3-point shots from 30+ feet away. They reached the NBA Finals and won 3 of the first 4 games against the Cleveland Cavaliers. They needed to win one more game, and two of the final three games would be on their home court. And they blew it.

Thus launched the summer's sports iteration of "stay woke." "The Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead" became the refrain of phony conspiracy theories, a punchline to remind sports fans how the supposed greatest team ever couldn't win just one more game.

It was a way of Cleveland and Cavaliers fans to celebrate the city's first major championship in decades, rubbing it in the face of bandwagon fans who only liked The Warriors because of their quest to be the greatest team in NBA history. But karma is a fickle mistress, and sure enough, during the World Series, it would be Cleveland's turn to blow a 3-1 lead. Which brings us to…

The Last Time The Cubs Won The World Series

Holy crap, the Cubs won the World Series! For the first time in 108 years, the Chicago Cubs are world series champions after beating the Cleveland Indians in a Game 7 that will go down in history as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest game in Major League Baseball history. Arguably the most heartwarming thing to come out of 2016 were videos of elderly Cubs fans overjoyed that their team finally won it all.

But of course, there were memes. Playful jokes mocking the Cubs' drought have been popular, but they reached a fever pitch during the world series, particularly after Neil DeGrasse Tyson began tweeting various facts about 1908. On Twitter, a great sporting event mixed with ire for Tyson created a great moment where everyone was tweeting a bunch of random crap about the last time the cubs won the World Series. It was a fun way to spend a stressful evening the week before the 2016 United States Presidential Election -- a fact not lost on some.

Crying Michael Jordan

The crying face of the greatest basketball player of all time made a strong case to be considered the greatest meme of all-time in 2016. Crying Michael Jordan has had one of the longest meme cycles in recent memory, only recently peaking when the freaking President addressed it while giving Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Why has Crying Jordan survived? One reason is its obvious versatility as a sad reaction image, but the success of Crying Jordan is also due to the photoshoppers who used it in increasingly clever and subtle ways. It became sports' answer to Loss Edits, a template for artists to build off of in brilliant ways. That creativity kept Crying Jordan fresh for much longer than it had any right to be. In some ways, it was the meme that defined 2016. While outwardly America have been the This Is Fine dog, inside, it had become Crying Jordan.

Angry Michael Phelps

The 2016 Summer Olympics didn't give us very much in the way of memes-- though everyone seemed to enjoy ragging on Rio -- but the one enduring image the Rio Olympics gave us was that of Angry Michael Phelps, sitting hooded and scowling while South African competitor Chad Le Clos juked and jive just a few feet away.

It reminded many of McKayla Maroney, another scowling Olympian, but whereas Maroney's face was the product of disappointment, Phelps' face looked like the product of pure, unbridled rage. Many compared it to the look on Anakin Skywalker's face right before he went and slaughtered a bunch of children. That it came from an American golden boy (marijuana charges not withstanding) and arguably the greatest athlete of all time made for a prime meme and a good sensible chuckle… right up until he referenced it in a commercial with the Bazinga guy.

The New Day

Wrestling in 2016 was the way wrestling alwas is: a whole lotta bad with a few moments of sweet, mind-blowing greatness sprinkled on top. In the former category, there was a slog of a Wrestlemania, a never-ending, never-succeeding push to get Roman Reigns popular with fans, the popular developmental brand NXT getting drained of all its talent, and 90% of Monday Night Raw episodes. In the latter, there was GOLDBERG, Shinsuke Nakamura, "The Man With Two Hands" James Ellsworth, and 90% of Smackdown Live episodes.

But perhaps the most consistent thing about wrestling this year was The New Day. The tag team of Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, and Big E held the tag team belts for the entire year and as of the time I’m writing this, look poised to hold the belts longer than any team in history. This is obviously a pretty impressive feat but it wouldn’t be noteworthy for KnowYourMeme.com were it not for the unabashed nerdiness of The New Day. These guys entered Wrestlemania XXXII dressed as characters from Dragon Ball. They regularly reference memes of the week in their promos-- just a few weeks ago, they referenced the UNameIt Challenge to an audience that didn't understand what the hell they were talking about. Xavier Woods grew a very successful Let's Play channel in 2016 called UpUpDownDown. When Pokemon GO was huge, Woods proudly told a wrestling arena that he was Team Valor.

The New Day embody a changing pro-wrestling fandom, one that moves away from the sexism and racism that defined the Attitude Era and embraces the diversity of the internet, the dorks who who read up on what's going behind the scenes and play a lot of video games and make memes. Their shtick may finally be getting tired, but for all of 2016, The New Day was the most consistently, inclusively fun in the whole company. New. Day Rocks.

Bartolo Colon

At the start of the 2016 season, the New York Mets had 4 of the best young pitchers in baseball in their starting pitching rotation, and Bartolo Colon, a 90 year old pitcher who weighs 800 pounds. By the end of the season, the entire pitching staff was on the disabled list except for Colon, who somehow had an incredible season throwing pretty much only 89 MPH fastballs down the middle of the plate. While that alone is remarkable, that is not why he's on this list. This is:

Bartolo Colon dinger x Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1 pic.twitter.com/VbmeZJKnKi

— Joon Lee (@iamjoonlee) May 8, 2016

On May 8th, Bartolo Colon, he of Bartolo Colon At Bat memes, he who stands in the batters box if he hits a ground ball, did the impossible: he hit a home run. As he rumbled around the bases (for a loooong time), the shock of it all set in. Had the Cubs not won the World Series, this would be the most unbelievable thing that happened in baseball in 2016. In many ways, 2016 proved that Hell has frozen over. Bartolo Colon was the first to demonstrate that.

Sidelined Chris Martin

Oh, Chris. You almost feel bad for the Coldplay lead singer. At Super Bowl 50, Chris Martin's band, arguably the biggest rock band in the world, got tapped to perform the biggest concert of the year: the Super Bowl halftime show. It should have been one of the proudest moments of Martin's career. Instead, the National Football League tapped Beyonce and Bruno Mars to also perform at the show, and the result was the undeniable upstaging of Chris Martin.

Look at that picture. Martin barely fits in the frame. Once Beyonce came out with a blistering performance of her latest single, "Formation," the meme was ripe for the making. Coldplay had warmed up the crowd with a performance of their milquetoast, midtempo ballad, "Paradise," hardly a fiery crowd-pleaser. Then Bruno Mars came out, did Uptown Funk, followed by Beyonce, and it was over. Coldplay got embarrassed. The shot of the three performers in the frame, Chris trying his best to look like he was having fun while his show got utterly hijacked, was the icing on the cake.

Crying Messi

Even the greatest athletes screw up sometime. And then they get turned into memes. Such was the fate of Lionel Messi, one of the all-time greatest soccer players, after he missed his penalty kick in the shootout of the 2016 Copa America final against Chile. It was a sad cap to Messi's international football career, as his miss helped Chile win their first international tournament ever, but for the internet, Messi's face that left the most lasting impression.

Messi is living proof of a new adage for the internet era: you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a meme. His failure led to great schadenfreude, which was only exacerbated a couple weeks later when Messi and his father were found guilty of tax evasion. But that was less memorable than the captions, gags, and of course, Crying Jordans the internet made in farewell to one of the game's greatest players from the international stage.

Confused Nick Young

Nick Young is a solid NBA basketball player, averaging about 18 points a game with the Los Angeles Lakers, but perhaps his greatest talent is looking confused. And what a confused face he has: incredulous, bemused, and conspiratorial. His is a face that asks you, "Are you seeing this shit?"

Chances are you saw Confused Nick Young reacting to ridiculous scenarios involving relationships, parents, politics, and more. It's the Jim Halpert stare of Black Twitter, a relatable look of disbelief that captures that says more than a dozen witty captions ever could.

Stare Kid

Sometimes when God leaves you wide open in the corner, you gotta shoot your shot. That's what Sammy DiDonato, Nebraskan college baseball game-attendee, did on June 24th when he and an ESPN camera locked eyes for a long, uncomfortable minute. While most fans upon seeing a television camera focused on them do an awkward wave and smile, DiDonato opted for… well…

DiDonato's weirdly sensual eye flirt with the camera is one of the reasons to love sports. Wait, let me rephrase that: sports are at their most fun when things as minute and routine as crowd-reaction shots go in unexpected ways. A pubescent kid in the crowd's commitment to being funny during a game no one will remember made for one of the silliest goofs of the year. That's just good wholesome fun.