Sometimes things catch fire on social media because of momentum. There’s no rhyme or reason other than a bunch of people decide to make something a meme and will it into existence.
That’s the case with Atlanta Braves fans and the Tiger Woods photo that has become part of the weirdest new meme in sports.
At the beginning of the 2019 season, you might have seen Braves fans changing their Twitter avatars to a photo of Woods, with some including a snap of him wearing an Atlanta hat. And after the Braves beat the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night, check out the replies to the Cubs’ tweet:
It goes on from there. What’s the deal here?
On a recent Talking Chop podcast, a writer for the Braves blog named Scott Coleman explained the Woods meme:
“There’s a photo of Tiger Woods … it’s him smiling, but he looks like he’s about to cry. It’s from years ago, he looks young in it. For whatever reason a few years back, I posted it once. it’s one of those, it’s easier to laugh than to cry. I posted it once and it kind of caught on and it’s been my thing for however many years now. We were talking after the Sunday night loss, tweeting back and forth that we should start changing our profile pictures. And I think the good folks over at Braves Reddit who were the first ones to change it over to the Woods photo.”
That sparked the viral meme that led the Braves to send this tweet, which confirms it’s gone mainstream:
I don’t understand it, and I definitely do respect it. This is so weird.
