About

Kevin Smith Crying refers to images of American film director, actor and podcaster Kevin Smith tearing up, usually in a review of a piece of popular entertainment. Images of Smith crying have been used as image macro memes for jokes about fan culture.

Origin

A long-time vocal critic of popular culture, Kevin Smith began sharing his opinions online in the 1990s, as his film career began reaching mainstream success. In the 2000s, he shared numerous blog posts in which he talked about fan culture and movies, such as Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith.^[1]

In the 2010s, he began posting images of himself crying as a result of a piece of culture. Smith posted the earliest available example on November 2nd, 2013. On Instagram, he posted a selfie with a copy of the book The Good, the Bad & The Ugly: Heart-pound, Jaw-dropping, and Gut-wrenching Moments from the Philadelphia Flyers.^[2] The director is welling up with tears behind the book. Within eight years, the image received more than 2,000 reactions (shown below).

Spread

The trend continued over the next eight years. The following year, on June 30th, 2014, Smith posted a similar picture of himself after visiting the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The post received more than 9,000 reactions in less than seven years (shown below, left).^[3]

On May 22nd, 2017, he tweeted ^[4] a crying selfie in response to the science fiction film Arrival. He wrote, "Not crying on a @VirginAmerica flight because I was barked at or dragged; just watched @arrivalmovie again. Such a beautiful piece of SciFi!" The post received more than 1,800 likes and 100 retweets in less than four years (shown below, center).

Two years later, on March 8th, 2019, he tweeted,^[5] "After a lifetime spent referencing the movies, the movies just referenced me! Many thanks to @MarvelStudios and to my friend @TheRealStanLee for the shout-out! But if I’m now part of the @Marvel Universe… Did I survive The Snap?" The tweet received more than 64,000 likes and 7,000 retweets in less than two years (shown below, right). The following year, on March 6th, 2020, Redditor ^[6] The_Iceman2288 posted the photo on the /r/marvelstudios subreddit. The post received more than 24,000 points (87% upvoted) and 600 comments in less than one year.

These pictures have also been used to mock Smith, particularly after tweeting a crying selfie in response to the WandaVision. ^[8] On March 7th, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @RealYungCripp posted four such pictures with the caption, "Just finished reading James Gunn's cancel culture thread." The tweet received more than 3,300 likes and 150 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References