Hoodie Melo

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About

Hoodie Melo refers to a parody of Evil Kermit featuring basketball player Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks. After Anthony was seen wearing a hooded sweatshirt to practice during the 2017 offseason, jokes began spreading that the "Hoodie Melo" was the darker, more sinister side of Carmelo Anthony, much like how the hooded Kermit the Frog represented the darker, more sinister side in the Evil Kermit meme.

Origin

In the 2017 NBA offseason, New York Knicks basketball player Carmelo Anthony was filmed several times practicing in a hooded sweatshirt, or "hoodie." The first time "Hoodie Melo" was posted online was on May 19th, in an Instagram video by workout coach Chris Brickley (shown below).

A post shared by Chris Brickley (@cbrickley603) on May 19, 2017 at 5:44pm PDT

On August 16th, 2017, SB Nation^[1] posted an article compiling videos of "Hoodie Melo" working out and showing some impressive basketball skills, leading to a joke idea that "Hoodie Melo" was a super-powered version of the real Carmelo Anthony. The same day, the Twitter account @SBNationNBA^[2] posted an Evil Kermit parody with Hoodie Melo, gaining over 2,800 retweets and 4,800 likes (shown below).

Spread

@SBnationNBA then invited fans to create their own versions of the meme in a follow-up tweet.^[3] Most of the jokes received in response referenced frustrations Knicks fans have long had with Anthony, such as his penchant for playing "isolation-style," a style where he holds on to the basketball for a long time before shooting a mid-range jump shot. For example, a popular tweet by @A_A_Ron_Rodgers^[4] with this joke gained over 2,000 retweets (shown below, left). Others referenced Anthony's tenuous relationship with New York and Knicks management. A tweet by @reydearmas^[5] referencing the "banana boat," a hypothetical scenario in which NBA stars Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Anthony would be on the same team, gained over 240 retweets (shown below, right). The jokes were featured in a Twitter Moment^[6] the following morning.