He Boomed Me

About

He Boomed Me refers to a rant of admiration from LeBron James about NBA player Jayson Tatum after Tatum dunked on him in Game 7 of the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals. The rant became a copypasta in other online communities after being published.

Origin

On May 27th, 2018, the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Boston Celtics 87-79 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, securing their place in the 2018 NBA Finals.^[1] During the game, Celtics player Jayson Tatum dunked on LeBron James (shown below).

After the game, James was reported to have ranted in admiration about Tatum. Roughly a month after the incident NBA reporter @brohrback tweeted:

Overheard in Cavs locker room after Game 7:
“He got me,” LeBron said of Tatum's dunk over him. "That f***ing Tatum boomed me."
LeBron added, “He’s so good,” repeating it four times.
LeBron then said he wanted to add Tatum to the list of players he works out with this summer.

Spread

That day, Rohrback's tweet was linked to in /r/nba,^[2] where it gained on over 10,000 points. The text of Rohrback's tweet began spreading on the subreddit as a copypasta. For example, user KlaysToaster posted it with reference to Houston Rockets head coach Mike D'Antoni on July 10th, gaining over 840 points (shown below, left). On July 1st, user madaboutdebian posted the copypasta referencing Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers, gaining over 750 points (shown below, right). The spread of the copypasta on /r/nba led to an inquiry on /r/OutOfTheLoop^[3] about the copypasta.

The copypasta soon spread outside of /r/nba to other subreddits, particularly those centered around Avengers: Infinity War. Edits tweaking the copypasta to be about Thanos appeared in /r/thanosdidnothingwrong (shown below, left) and /r/inthesoulstone (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References