LeBron James is a legend — you don’t need to be a basketball fan to know that.
A four-time NBA champion, four-time NBA Most Valuable Player award winner, and the player with the most playoff points in NBA history, James has been called the greatest of all time by many.
Though it’s not just his career statistics that have made James the figure he is. He stands out in places other than simply the basketball court.
James has consistently advocated for social justice and human rights in America. Whether addressing Black Lives Matter in post-game interviews or establishing a non-profit voting initiative to increase Black voter turnout in 2020, James is a leader on all fronts.
It’s no wonder that the NBA star has been featured in numerous brand campaigns and can be seen on all online platforms.
But there’s one social media platform in particular that James has recently taken over in an unexpected, never-before-seen fashion: TikTok.
A simple search of “LeBron James” on the app will return an endless scroll of videos, many made months or even years ago. The more recent ones, however, will show that they’ve received millions of likes and all have one thing in common: the audio used for them is a famous song, rewritten to have lyrics about James.
This all began in early March after a user posted a video of how they had tried to make a song about James.
The post went viral and took over people’s feeds. Users everywhere began using the audio, which currently has over 60,000 posts under it, for their own funny “LeBron” posts.
Some would be captioned “Men deserve flowers too” and featured paper bouquets with flowers made out of James’ face, while others would showcase rooms decked out in James-branded comforters, pillows, carpets, and shower curtains.
What was one viral audio turned into an entire wave of content centred around the athlete.
One part of this wave is #Bronify, a TikTok hashtag with close to 2,000 posts.
But what is Bronify? If you think the hashtag name is oddly similar to Spotify, you’ve thought correctly.
All these TikTok posts that feature audio of a famous song with rewritten James-themed lyrics seem to be part of Bronify — a satirical version of the beloved audio streaming platform.
It’s not just a TikTok hashtag either. It’s also a full-fledged website replicating the Spotify interface, where every remixed song can be listened to. These include “Marry Bron,” originally “Marry You” by Bruno Mars, and “I kissed LeBron,” which was initially “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry.
Another prominent song on this space is “I write brons not bronigies,” remixed from Panic! At The Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” and, while it was probably made to follow this wave of content, it brings up an interesting perspective.
“Glazing” is a popular term that’s used online, and it is brought up in a lot of discourse surrounding the NBA legend. Defined by Merriam-Webster as “to shower [someone] with excessive praise,” it’s often referenced when users talk about James, such as in the song’s lyric “I can’t help to glaze when I hear his name.”
While many argue that this shouldn’t be called glazing when James is one of the most accomplished and influential athletes in history, the magnitude of the love for and content regarding the athlete can seem odd to those who don’t know much about him.
This also comes at a time when James has become the first male athlete to have his own Ken doll — just one more accomplishment to add to his already stacked list.
It’s clear that, with all these varying conversations, James has garnered attention from many groups of people, most notably the girlfriends of his most devoted fans.
Many of them have raised concerns about how their partners go to “glaze” their favourite basketball player. But it seems as if this isn’t being taken as a serious issue.
One viral post shows a woman saying, “I think my boyfriend is emotionally cheating on me with LeBron James.” As she continues her spiel, the video turns into an edit of him.
It seems as if these women are in relationships with their boyfriends, who are in relationships with James.
And it’s not just this current trend that has sparked this societally ingrained issue from appearing. There have been countless online threads and articles where women talk about how they feel like the “side-chick” to their boyfriend’s relationship with a sport, and how they have to compete with an athlete for attention.
Though it’s a harmless and often hilarious thing to see while randomly scrolling through your TikTok feed, this wave of LeBron James has inadvertently posed a reason for concern, or at least confusion, for some.
It’s been a little over a month since this has begun and unlike other trends that take the internet by storm, James’ never-ending impact on the world might have social media platforms keeping up with these posts for a while longer.