LeBron James Scream / LeBron James Satanic Ritual

About

LeBron James Scream, also known as LeBron James Satanic Ritual and LeBron James, Scream If You Love X, refers to a meme trend predominantly popularized on TikTok that shows LeBron James "screaming" before the video cuts to a variation of the athlete's pre-game ritual. Videos of LeBron doing certain hand signs were edited to look more "satanic" in April 2023, while the video of Lebron James screaming was first posted in October 2023. The meme trend featuring both these clips edited to fit various themes took off in April 2024.

Origin

On June 7th, 2015, the official NBA YouTube^[1] channel posted a video titled, "LeBron James Pays Tribute to Kyrie Irving Pregame," showing the athlete performing a series of cryptic hand gestures (seen below).

The video has since been misconstrued as evidence of LeBron James's "satanic" interests, as seen in an April 1st, 2022 TikTok posted by @expose.the.industry.^[2] On April 10th, 2023, TikToker^[3] @money_burnz posted the earliest known edit of the phrases "Freemasonry Hand Sign," "6-6-6 (Sign of the Devil)," "Baphomet Chest Release," "Exsuffulation (Dark Magic)," and "Spreading the Energy Around" (shown below).

On October 5th, 2023, the NBA's official TikTok^[4] account posted a video of LeBron James releasing a scream in reaction to someone calling him the oldest player in the NBA, gathering over 7 million plays and 900,000 likes in six months (seen below, left). On October 7th, TikToker^[5] @mustard_expert posted a video editing over LeBron's voice with funny sounds, gathering over 21 million plays and 3 million likes in six months (seen below, right).

Spread

On February 20th, 2024, TikToker^[6] @iluvuprada posted a video combining the LeBron James Scream video and the LeBron James Satanic Ritual video, gathering over 26,000 likes and 1,000 likes in two months (seen below, left). On April 16th, TikToker^[7] @cclips3000 posted a version of the video, this time saying, "LeBron James, scream if you love God," and adding an edited version of LeBron James's pregame ritual. The post gathered over 1 million plays and 330,000 likes in a week (seen below, right).

On April 22nd, 2024, X^[8] user @IAmSplodeRich posted a version of the meme that read, "LeBron James, scream if you love Pokémon," gathering over 14,000 likes in a week (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References