LeBron James and DaKidGowie Rapping "First Day Out" by Tee Grizzley

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About

LeBron James and DaKidGowie Rapping "First Day Out" by Tee Grizzley is a meme video edit consisting of two copies of a 2017 video of LeBron James rapping "First Day Out" by Tee Grizzley placed side-by-side next to a video of content creator Da Kid Gowie recreating the LeBron James rap video. As a meme, the video is used to rank three given subjects, with the videos of LeBron being used to call the first two subjects good and the video of Gowie being used to call the last subject bad. The format was popularized on X / Twitter in late August 2024 and went viral that month when an example of the meme calling the shows iCarly and Victorious superior to Zoey 101 went viral, inspiring discourse online.

Origin

On June 15th, 2017, NBA player LeBron James posted a video to Instagram^[1] of himself with a shaved head in the gym rapping to Tee Grizzley's song "First Day Out," garnering over 10 million views in seven years. The video went viral and, according to a report by TMZ,^[2] tripled the sales of Tee Grizzley's music.

On June 22nd, content creator DaKidGowie posted a video on Instagram^[3] recreating the LeBron James video, which is situated to the left of his recreation, writing, "Oh… so we're starting the #LeBronJamesChallenge? You know I'm here for this!" The video garnered over 996,000 views in roughly the same span of time.

Gowie reposted the video several times to his social media pages, including to TikTok^[4] on June 23rd, 2023, garnering over 3.9 million views in a year.

On August 22nd, 2024, the @EASPORTSNHL X^[5] page posted a photo of the cover art for the video game NHL 25, which features the Hughes brothers, Quinn, Jack and Luke Hughes (all hockey players) on the cover.

That day, X^[6] user @S7Dsn quote-reposted the post with a video edit of the LeBron x DaKidGlowie video in which another copy of LeBron's video has been added to the edit, meant to suggest that the first two brothers, Quinn and Jack, are good players and that the last brother, Luke, is bad, garnering over 5,700 likes in six days.

Spread

The meme gained viral spread on X over the following days, where it was largely used in the same way, to rank three subjects. Many of the memes pertain to sports.

On August 23rd, 2024, X^[7] user @C4BOSTON_ posted a version of the meme writing, "Celtics, Bucks, and 'Knicks' in championship conversations," garnering over 1,500 likes in five days. On August 24th, X^[8] user @WrldOfBook posted a version that gained over 1,600 likes in four days.

August 2024 iCarly, Victorious, Zoey 101 X Post

On August 27th, 2024, X^[9] user @30GotNext posted a version of the meme claiming that the Nickelodeon series Zoey 101 is worse than the other Nickelodeon series iCarly and Victorious, garnering over 52,000 likes and 3,900 reposts in a day.

The post caused "Zoey 101" to trend on X as many users came to the show's defense. For example, on August 27th, X^[10] user @yebsss0 posted the Freedom of Speech meme, writing, "Zoey 101 was better than iCarly," garnering over 1,800 likes in a day.

Continued Spread

On August 28th, 2024, X^[11] user @Salt5006 posted a version of the meme comparing the fighting video games Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, garnering over 7,400 likes in a day.

That same day, X^[12] user @justmeight then posted a version comparing powers from several anime series, garnering over 2,300 likes in a day.