Megan Rapinoe's Goal Celebration

Submission 11,104

Part of a series on 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. [View Related Entries]

About

Megan Rapinoe's Goal Celebration refers to a pose struck by US Women's National Soccer Team player Megan Rapinoe after scoring the opening goal in her team's quarterfinals game against France in the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. The pose inspired jokes which used it as a reaction image, paired with captions describing moments of pride or self-satisfaction.

Origin

On June 28th, 2019, the US Women's National Soccer Team played France in the quarterfinals of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Early in the game, Megan Rapinoe scored on a free kick. Afterwards, she celebrated by striking a pose in front of the crowd (shown below).

Spread

The pose was immediately noticed by viewers. Sports writer Bill Simmons called it one of his favorite sports pictures of the decade,^[1] gaining over 5,900 retweets and 65,000 likes (shown below, left). Many, including Bleacher Report,^[2] noticed that her pose was similar to that of the signature pose of WWE superstar Randy Orton (shown below, right). Orton tweeted saying Rapinoe "knows how to celebrate."^[3]

Others quickly turned the picture into a reaction image, pairing it with captions denoting pride and self-satisfaction. For example, user @LadyLovesTaft^[4] tweeted a Look at All the Fucks I Give joke with the image, gaining over 28,000 retweets and 182,000 likes (shown below, left). User @IsaacFitzgerald^[5] tweeted a more self-deprecating joke about cooking pasta, gaining over 1,700 retweets and 19,000 likes (shown below, right). The jokes were compiled in a Twitter Moments^[6] page.