Crying Jordan

2015photoshopclassic

Also known as: Crying Jordan · CJ · Crying Jordan Meme · CRYING JORDAN

Crying Jordan is a 2015 photoshop meme featuring Michael Jordan's tearful face from his 2009 Hall of Fame induction, used to mock defeated athletes and teams.

Crying Jordan is a photoshop meme built from a cutout image of Michael Jordan's tearful face during his 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech. Starting as a niche sports forum joke around 2012, it exploded into one of the internet's most recognizable memes by 2015-2016, used primarily to mock defeated athletes and teams. The meme became so widespread that Jordan himself acknowledged it, President Obama referenced it during a Medal of Freedom ceremony, and it spawned physical merchandise including custom sneakers.

TL;DR

Crying Jordan a meme featuring basketball legend Michael Jordan with digitally edited tears streaming down his face from his Hall of Fame induction speech.

Overview

The Crying Jordan meme uses a cropped image of Michael Jordan's face mid-cry, tears streaming down his cheeks, superimposed onto the heads of athletes, public figures, or anyone caught in an embarrassing loss or failure2. The cutout works because Jordan's expression is unmistakable: scrunched face, glistening tears, slightly open mouth. It's the ultimate image of defeat stamped onto the greatest basketball player who ever lived.

The format is simple. Find someone or something that just took an L, paste Jordan's crying face on top, and post. The meme works across sports, politics, pop culture, and everyday life. Its power comes from the contrast between Jordan's legendary competitive dominance and the raw vulnerability of the crying image3.

The source photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Stephan Savoia on September 11, 2009, during Jordan's Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in Springfield, Massachusetts3. Throughout the speech, Jordan cried repeatedly while recounting stories from his career2.

The image sat mostly untouched for a few years. On April 23, 2012, someone submitted an image macro titled "Sad Michael Jordan" to MemeCrunch, featuring the unedited crying photo with the caption "Why / Did I buy the Bobcats?"2. This was the first known meme use, riffing on Jordan's purchase of the then-struggling Charlotte Bobcats franchise.

The photoshopped head-on-body format that defined the meme didn't appear until 2014. According to Wikipedia, posters on the internet message board Boxden.com first started cutting out Jordan's crying face and pasting it onto other people's heads3. On November 7, 2014, The Coli Forums member At30wecashout posted a collection of Crying Jordan examples2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter/Reddit
Key People
Stephan Savoia, Michael Jordan
Date
2013
Year
2015

The source photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Stephan Savoia on September 11, 2009, during Jordan's Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in Springfield, Massachusetts. Throughout the speech, Jordan cried repeatedly while recounting stories from his career.

The image sat mostly untouched for a few years. On April 23, 2012, someone submitted an image macro titled "Sad Michael Jordan" to MemeCrunch, featuring the unedited crying photo with the caption "Why / Did I buy the Bobcats?". This was the first known meme use, riffing on Jordan's purchase of the then-struggling Charlotte Bobcats franchise.

The photoshopped head-on-body format that defined the meme didn't appear until 2014. According to Wikipedia, posters on the internet message board Boxden.com first started cutting out Jordan's crying face and pasting it onto other people's heads. On November 7, 2014, The Coli Forums member At30wecashout posted a collection of Crying Jordan examples.

How It Spread

The meme picked up speed in early 2015. On February 3, 2015, Nike Forums member Nelson999 started an "Official MJ cry GIF & Img thread". A month later, on March 4, the MJSadFaces Tumblr blog launched to curate the best examples. By March 23, Complex published an article about the crying face images, and Vice Sports followed on March 27 with professional photographs featuring the superimposed face.

The fall of 2015 brought the meme into mainstream pop culture territory. On October 16, the Huffington Post released a printable life-size paper mask of Jordan's crying face, perfectly timed for Halloween. The article described Jordan as someone "known on Sports Twitter as the basis of the Internet's funniest meme".

January 2016 marked a turning point. On January 24, Jordan's own sons Marcus and Jeffrey tweeted their approval of the meme. In February, TMZ reported that Jordan was aware of the meme and was fine with people using his image for fun, as long as it stayed non-commercial. The Chicago Tribune corroborated this, citing a statement from Jordan's spokesperson Estee Portnoy.

Not everyone agreed about Jordan's feelings on the matter. In May 2016, TMZ interviewed former Bulls teammate Charles Oakley, who said flatly, "nah, he don't like it". That same month, rapper Ja Rule tweeted a theory that Jordan earned $1 every time someone posted a Crying Jordan meme, then quickly deleted the tweet. Twitter users responded by photoshopping Jordan's crying face onto Ja Rule himself. Ja Rule took the roasting in stride, posting follow-up tweets making fun of himself.

Crying Jordan attracted mainstream media attention throughout late 2015 and early 2016, eventually becoming a globally used internet meme. Media critics suggested its popularity stemmed partly from seeing "the ultimate alpha in a vulnerable position," with people "simultaneously mock[ing] and celebrate[ing] a masculine star who expresses vulnerability".

Platforms

TwitterRedditESPNFacebookInstagramTikTok

Timeline

2009-09-11

AP photographer Stephan Savoia captured the iconic photo of Michael Jordan crying during his Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in Springfield, Massachusetts.

2014-11-07

The Coli Forums member At30wecashout posted a collection of Crying Jordan photoshop examples, helping spread the format beyond its original community.

2015-02-03

Nike Forums member Nelson999 started an "Official MJ cry GIF & Img thread," further consolidating the Crying Jordan meme community.

2018-03-01

The Crying Jordan meme surged again when Loyola-Chicago lost to Michigan in the NCAA Final Four, prompting a fresh wave of photoshops.

2020-02-01

Michael Jordan broke down while delivering a eulogy for Kobe Bryant at the Staples Center, then joked: "I told my wife I wasn't going to do this because I didn't want to see that for the next three or four years."

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The Crying Jordan format is straightforward:

1

Find a photo of someone (usually an athlete or public figure) who just experienced a loss, failure, or embarrassing moment

2

Cut out Jordan's crying face from the source image

3

Paste it over the person's head in the photo, roughly matching the head size

4

Post with context about the loss or failure

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

The meme's biggest mainstream moment came on November 22, 2016, when President Barack Obama awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama introduced Jordan as "the guy from Space Jam" and directly referenced the Crying Jordan meme during the ceremony. A photograph captured Jordan actually crying during Obama's speech, which triggered a new wave of Crying Jordan photoshops using that very image.

Athletes embraced the meme too. Draymond Green, Jordan Spieth, and Schoolboy Q have referenced it in interviews. Players like Stephen Curry, Jon Jones, and Roberto Luongo used the image self-deprecatingly on social media after bad performances.

The meme inspired physical products. In mid-April 2016, artists Sherman Winfield and Andrew Weiss launched the "Crying Kicks" Tumblr blog, showcasing Air Jordan sneakers with the crying face embroidered on the tongue.

In March 2018, the meme surged again when Loyola-Chicago lost to Michigan in the Final Four. The team's 98-year-old chaplain, Sister Jean, had become a national sensation for her courtside cheering. After the loss, photoshops placing Jordan's crying face on Sister Jean flooded Twitter, with sportswriter Darren Rovell's version pulling over 4,700 retweets and 11,000 likes.

After Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals, a media producer bought the domain CryingJordan.com and set it to redirect to Chris Paul's profile page on the Phoenix Suns website after his team's loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

The meme also lived on in community spaces. Facebook groups like "Crying Jordan Meme Fans" kept the format alive, and the image inspired similar meme faces including "Uncle Denzel," "Uncle Shay," and "Big Ern".

Full History

What makes Crying Jordan unusual among memes is its five-year incubation period. The source photo existed from 2009, but nobody thought to weaponize it until 2012, and even then the 2012 MemeCrunch post was just using the unmodified image as a reaction. The creative leap of cutting out Jordan's face and pasting it onto other people didn't happen until forum users on Boxden.com innovated the format in 2014.

The meme's appeal ran deeper than just a funny face. Media critics pointed out that the joke works because it shows "the ultimate alpha in a vulnerable position," and that people "simultaneously mock and celebrate a masculine star who expresses vulnerability". Jordan built his entire brand on being an invincible winner. Seeing his sobbing face plastered on a losing team's logo hits different because of that gap between his competitive legend and his emotional breakdown.

The physical world caught up fast. In mid-April 2016, artists Sherman Winfield and Andrew Weiss launched "Crying Kicks," a Tumblr blog showcasing custom Air Jordan sneakers with the Crying Jordan face embroidered on the tongue. The sneaker culture crossover was a natural fit given Jordan's status in both basketball and fashion.

After Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals, when the Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns, a media producer purchased CryingJordan.com and set it to redirect to Chris Paul's profile on the Suns website. Someone also built an open-source mobile app called "The Crying Jordan Meme Generator" that let users paste Jordan's face onto any image, and it was downloaded by several thousand people.

The meme's most emotional moment came on February 24, 2020, when Jordan delivered a eulogy for Kobe Bryant at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Jordan began crying during his tribute to his close friend, then paused and told the crowd: "Now he's got me. I'll have to look at another crying meme. I told my wife I wasn't going to do this because I didn't want to see that for the next three or four years. That is what Kobe Bryant does to me". The crowd laughed through their own tears. It was probably the only time the Crying Jordan meme made people emotional rather than amused.

Professional athletes leaned into the format over the years. Stephen Curry, Jon Jones, and hockey goaltender Roberto Luongo all posted Crying Jordan edits of themselves after bad games or losses. Draymond Green, Jordan Spieth, and Schoolboy Q referenced the meme in interviews. The image also spread beyond sports into political commentary, getting applied to Barack Obama and Marco Rubio among others.

Fun Facts

Jordan's sons Marcus and Jeffrey publicly loved the meme, tweeting their approval in January 2016.

Obama called Jordan "the guy from Space Jam" before referencing the meme at the Medal of Freedom ceremony.

During his eulogy for Kobe Bryant in February 2020, Jordan started crying and told the audience: "Now he's got me. I'll have to look at another Crying Meme... I told my wife I wasn't going to do this because I didn't want to see that for the next three or four years. That is what Kobe Bryant does to me".

Charles Oakley contradicted Jordan's spokesperson by telling TMZ that Jordan actually didn't like the meme.

The original photo was taken on September 11, 2009, by AP photographer Stephan Savoia.

Derivatives & Variations

Text-overlaid versions with specific sources of disappointment

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Deep-fried and heavily modified versions

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Mashups combining Crying Jordan with other images or memes

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Photo comparisons showing Crying Jordan alongside related images

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Color-modified and high-contrast versions

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Frequently Asked Questions

Crying Jordan

2015photoshopclassic

Also known as: Crying Jordan · CJ · Crying Jordan Meme · CRYING JORDAN

Crying Jordan is a 2015 photoshop meme featuring Michael Jordan's tearful face from his 2009 Hall of Fame induction, used to mock defeated athletes and teams.

Crying Jordan is a photoshop meme built from a cutout image of Michael Jordan's tearful face during his 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech. Starting as a niche sports forum joke around 2012, it exploded into one of the internet's most recognizable memes by 2015-2016, used primarily to mock defeated athletes and teams. The meme became so widespread that Jordan himself acknowledged it, President Obama referenced it during a Medal of Freedom ceremony, and it spawned physical merchandise including custom sneakers.

TL;DR

Crying Jordan a meme featuring basketball legend Michael Jordan with digitally edited tears streaming down his face from his Hall of Fame induction speech.

Overview

The Crying Jordan meme uses a cropped image of Michael Jordan's face mid-cry, tears streaming down his cheeks, superimposed onto the heads of athletes, public figures, or anyone caught in an embarrassing loss or failure. The cutout works because Jordan's expression is unmistakable: scrunched face, glistening tears, slightly open mouth. It's the ultimate image of defeat stamped onto the greatest basketball player who ever lived.

The format is simple. Find someone or something that just took an L, paste Jordan's crying face on top, and post. The meme works across sports, politics, pop culture, and everyday life. Its power comes from the contrast between Jordan's legendary competitive dominance and the raw vulnerability of the crying image.

The source photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Stephan Savoia on September 11, 2009, during Jordan's Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in Springfield, Massachusetts. Throughout the speech, Jordan cried repeatedly while recounting stories from his career.

The image sat mostly untouched for a few years. On April 23, 2012, someone submitted an image macro titled "Sad Michael Jordan" to MemeCrunch, featuring the unedited crying photo with the caption "Why / Did I buy the Bobcats?". This was the first known meme use, riffing on Jordan's purchase of the then-struggling Charlotte Bobcats franchise.

The photoshopped head-on-body format that defined the meme didn't appear until 2014. According to Wikipedia, posters on the internet message board Boxden.com first started cutting out Jordan's crying face and pasting it onto other people's heads. On November 7, 2014, The Coli Forums member At30wecashout posted a collection of Crying Jordan examples.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter/Reddit
Key People
Stephan Savoia, Michael Jordan
Date
2013
Year
2015

The source photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Stephan Savoia on September 11, 2009, during Jordan's Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in Springfield, Massachusetts. Throughout the speech, Jordan cried repeatedly while recounting stories from his career.

The image sat mostly untouched for a few years. On April 23, 2012, someone submitted an image macro titled "Sad Michael Jordan" to MemeCrunch, featuring the unedited crying photo with the caption "Why / Did I buy the Bobcats?". This was the first known meme use, riffing on Jordan's purchase of the then-struggling Charlotte Bobcats franchise.

The photoshopped head-on-body format that defined the meme didn't appear until 2014. According to Wikipedia, posters on the internet message board Boxden.com first started cutting out Jordan's crying face and pasting it onto other people's heads. On November 7, 2014, The Coli Forums member At30wecashout posted a collection of Crying Jordan examples.

How It Spread

The meme picked up speed in early 2015. On February 3, 2015, Nike Forums member Nelson999 started an "Official MJ cry GIF & Img thread". A month later, on March 4, the MJSadFaces Tumblr blog launched to curate the best examples. By March 23, Complex published an article about the crying face images, and Vice Sports followed on March 27 with professional photographs featuring the superimposed face.

The fall of 2015 brought the meme into mainstream pop culture territory. On October 16, the Huffington Post released a printable life-size paper mask of Jordan's crying face, perfectly timed for Halloween. The article described Jordan as someone "known on Sports Twitter as the basis of the Internet's funniest meme".

January 2016 marked a turning point. On January 24, Jordan's own sons Marcus and Jeffrey tweeted their approval of the meme. In February, TMZ reported that Jordan was aware of the meme and was fine with people using his image for fun, as long as it stayed non-commercial. The Chicago Tribune corroborated this, citing a statement from Jordan's spokesperson Estee Portnoy.

Not everyone agreed about Jordan's feelings on the matter. In May 2016, TMZ interviewed former Bulls teammate Charles Oakley, who said flatly, "nah, he don't like it". That same month, rapper Ja Rule tweeted a theory that Jordan earned $1 every time someone posted a Crying Jordan meme, then quickly deleted the tweet. Twitter users responded by photoshopping Jordan's crying face onto Ja Rule himself. Ja Rule took the roasting in stride, posting follow-up tweets making fun of himself.

Crying Jordan attracted mainstream media attention throughout late 2015 and early 2016, eventually becoming a globally used internet meme. Media critics suggested its popularity stemmed partly from seeing "the ultimate alpha in a vulnerable position," with people "simultaneously mock[ing] and celebrate[ing] a masculine star who expresses vulnerability".

Platforms

TwitterRedditESPNFacebookInstagramTikTok

Timeline

2009-09-11

AP photographer Stephan Savoia captured the iconic photo of Michael Jordan crying during his Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in Springfield, Massachusetts.

2014-11-07

The Coli Forums member At30wecashout posted a collection of Crying Jordan photoshop examples, helping spread the format beyond its original community.

2015-02-03

Nike Forums member Nelson999 started an "Official MJ cry GIF & Img thread," further consolidating the Crying Jordan meme community.

2018-03-01

The Crying Jordan meme surged again when Loyola-Chicago lost to Michigan in the NCAA Final Four, prompting a fresh wave of photoshops.

2020-02-01

Michael Jordan broke down while delivering a eulogy for Kobe Bryant at the Staples Center, then joked: "I told my wife I wasn't going to do this because I didn't want to see that for the next three or four years."

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The Crying Jordan format is straightforward:

1

Find a photo of someone (usually an athlete or public figure) who just experienced a loss, failure, or embarrassing moment

2

Cut out Jordan's crying face from the source image

3

Paste it over the person's head in the photo, roughly matching the head size

4

Post with context about the loss or failure

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

The meme's biggest mainstream moment came on November 22, 2016, when President Barack Obama awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama introduced Jordan as "the guy from Space Jam" and directly referenced the Crying Jordan meme during the ceremony. A photograph captured Jordan actually crying during Obama's speech, which triggered a new wave of Crying Jordan photoshops using that very image.

Athletes embraced the meme too. Draymond Green, Jordan Spieth, and Schoolboy Q have referenced it in interviews. Players like Stephen Curry, Jon Jones, and Roberto Luongo used the image self-deprecatingly on social media after bad performances.

The meme inspired physical products. In mid-April 2016, artists Sherman Winfield and Andrew Weiss launched the "Crying Kicks" Tumblr blog, showcasing Air Jordan sneakers with the crying face embroidered on the tongue.

In March 2018, the meme surged again when Loyola-Chicago lost to Michigan in the Final Four. The team's 98-year-old chaplain, Sister Jean, had become a national sensation for her courtside cheering. After the loss, photoshops placing Jordan's crying face on Sister Jean flooded Twitter, with sportswriter Darren Rovell's version pulling over 4,700 retweets and 11,000 likes.

After Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals, a media producer bought the domain CryingJordan.com and set it to redirect to Chris Paul's profile page on the Phoenix Suns website after his team's loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

The meme also lived on in community spaces. Facebook groups like "Crying Jordan Meme Fans" kept the format alive, and the image inspired similar meme faces including "Uncle Denzel," "Uncle Shay," and "Big Ern".

Full History

What makes Crying Jordan unusual among memes is its five-year incubation period. The source photo existed from 2009, but nobody thought to weaponize it until 2012, and even then the 2012 MemeCrunch post was just using the unmodified image as a reaction. The creative leap of cutting out Jordan's face and pasting it onto other people didn't happen until forum users on Boxden.com innovated the format in 2014.

The meme's appeal ran deeper than just a funny face. Media critics pointed out that the joke works because it shows "the ultimate alpha in a vulnerable position," and that people "simultaneously mock and celebrate a masculine star who expresses vulnerability". Jordan built his entire brand on being an invincible winner. Seeing his sobbing face plastered on a losing team's logo hits different because of that gap between his competitive legend and his emotional breakdown.

The physical world caught up fast. In mid-April 2016, artists Sherman Winfield and Andrew Weiss launched "Crying Kicks," a Tumblr blog showcasing custom Air Jordan sneakers with the Crying Jordan face embroidered on the tongue. The sneaker culture crossover was a natural fit given Jordan's status in both basketball and fashion.

After Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals, when the Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns, a media producer purchased CryingJordan.com and set it to redirect to Chris Paul's profile on the Suns website. Someone also built an open-source mobile app called "The Crying Jordan Meme Generator" that let users paste Jordan's face onto any image, and it was downloaded by several thousand people.

The meme's most emotional moment came on February 24, 2020, when Jordan delivered a eulogy for Kobe Bryant at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Jordan began crying during his tribute to his close friend, then paused and told the crowd: "Now he's got me. I'll have to look at another crying meme. I told my wife I wasn't going to do this because I didn't want to see that for the next three or four years. That is what Kobe Bryant does to me". The crowd laughed through their own tears. It was probably the only time the Crying Jordan meme made people emotional rather than amused.

Professional athletes leaned into the format over the years. Stephen Curry, Jon Jones, and hockey goaltender Roberto Luongo all posted Crying Jordan edits of themselves after bad games or losses. Draymond Green, Jordan Spieth, and Schoolboy Q referenced the meme in interviews. The image also spread beyond sports into political commentary, getting applied to Barack Obama and Marco Rubio among others.

Fun Facts

Jordan's sons Marcus and Jeffrey publicly loved the meme, tweeting their approval in January 2016.

Obama called Jordan "the guy from Space Jam" before referencing the meme at the Medal of Freedom ceremony.

During his eulogy for Kobe Bryant in February 2020, Jordan started crying and told the audience: "Now he's got me. I'll have to look at another Crying Meme... I told my wife I wasn't going to do this because I didn't want to see that for the next three or four years. That is what Kobe Bryant does to me".

Charles Oakley contradicted Jordan's spokesperson by telling TMZ that Jordan actually didn't like the meme.

The original photo was taken on September 11, 2009, by AP photographer Stephan Savoia.

Derivatives & Variations

Text-overlaid versions with specific sources of disappointment

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Deep-fried and heavily modified versions

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Mashups combining Crying Jordan with other images or memes

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Photo comparisons showing Crying Jordan alongside related images

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Color-modified and high-contrast versions

A variation of Crying Jordan

(2015)

Frequently Asked Questions