About

LeBron James Reportedly refers to a series of exploitable memes of professional basketball player LeBron James, usually looking disappointed or facepalming his head in disbelief and paired with the phrasal template "LeBron James Reportedly X." Parodies using the template are often related to gaming content, putting headlines over LeBron's picture as if he made a "rookie" mistake while playing a video game. The meme started in September 2022 but was popularized in August 2023 on Reddit, seeing a resurgence in March and April 2024.

Origin

On September 25th, 2022, an unknown user on the /r/OkBuddyRetard subreddit^[1] posted an infographic that showed veteran NBA player LeBron James facepalming his head in disappointment with the quote "LeBron James reportedly downed during instakill," which references a Call of Duty^[2] Zombies mode ability in which the player can instantly kill enemies for 30 seconds. The post (shown below) has since been deleted from Reddit but garnered over 1,200 upvotes and 19 comments in two years.

Spread

In early 2023, the "LeBron James Reportedly X" phrasal template sparked a series of parodies in which the professional NBA player failed at playing games. For example, on April 10th, 2023, Reddit^[3] user @MrPifle used LeBron's image paired with the quote "LeBron James reportedly used Aegis in Fountain," which is related to the third-person multiplayer online game Smite. The post (shown below, left) amassed more than 1,600 upvotes and 54 comments in a year.

On March 29th, 2024, iFunny^[4] user @IronManLOHH posted a version of LeBron's meme with the quote "Lebron James reportedly Shined flashlight at Witch," which references the Left 4 Dead monster being triggered by the player's flashlight. The post (shown below, right) received roughly 100 reactions in two weeks.

The "Lebron James Reportedly" meme peaked in searches after X^[5] user @iownfivewiis posted on April 8th, 2024, a version of the exploitable with the quote "LeBron James reportedly forgot to delete the meta-inf folder," which amassed more than 27,000 likes and 2,400 retweets in a week

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References