Baby Gronk

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About

Baby Gronk is the nickname of Madden San Miguel, a 10-year-old football prospect and social media influencer, predominantly on Instagram (@maddensanmiguel), whose nickname is in reference to NFL player Rob Gronkowski. Baby Gronk gained virality and a large following online in the early 2020s, peaking in popularity in 2023. Baby Gronk became known in memes for the Baby Gronk rizz king, Livvy just rizzed him up memes in June 2023, that used the slang term rizz, making fun of a TikToker (@h00pify) who made a seemingly cringy video about Baby Gronk being "rizzed up" by LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne when the two met in a collab video. Thereafter, Baby Gronk became the subject of memes based on humorous Gen Alpha slander that additionally critiqued Baby Gronk's mom and dad who ran his social media presence.

Online History

Baby Gronk, real name Madden San Miguel, is from Dallas, Texas.^[1] His social media presence is adminned by his father, Jake San Miguel, who is a 35-year-old former musician and high school football player.^[1] As of 2023, Jake San Miguel has a job in IT.^[2] He's told The Athletic^[2] in an interview, "I’ve had a plan for my son since before he was born," as well as:

A lot of people look at it like, “Oh, this man is crazy” or “He doesn’t have real expectations for his son.” I do. I say he may not make it, so you might as well have $500,000 or a $1 million to start your life out. He might get a scholarship or free school by playing sports, but sports isn’t everything. It goes away. Sometimes it isn’t God’s plan for you. I tore my ACL. I didn’t make it. All I had was a sad story.

On April 30th, 2018, Baby Gronk's Instagram^[3] account @maddensanmiguel uploaded its first post, a video of Baby Gronk scoring a touchdown in a flag football game, gaining roughly 16,600 views and 390 likes in five years. The Instagram account continued to upload photos and videos of Baby Gronk going into 2018 and 2019 (examples shown below).

Going into 2019, Baby Gronk's posts started to consistently receive over 1,000 likes each. On April 10th, 2019, a Baby Gronk Instagram^[4] video became the first post to reach over 10,000 likes, earning roughly 32,000 views and 10,300 likes in four years. The video was of Baby Gronk with ex-NFL player Aqib Talib.

Going into 2022, Baby Gronk's online presence spread to YouTube, uploading his first YouTube^[5] video on January 14th, 2022, gaining roughly 112,500 views and 2,900 likes in one year (shown below). On March 15th, 2023, Baby Gronk uploaded his most viral Instagram^[6] post as of June 2023, a Reel of meeting Livvy Dunne at LSU. The Reel gained roughly 176,100 likes in three months.

Baby Gronk uploaded his first TikTok^[13] video to his account @babygronkgoated on March 27th, 2023. By June 9th, 2023, Baby Gronk had amassed roughly 319,000 followers on Instagram,^[15] roughly 133,000 subscribers on YouTube,^[16] roughly 4,600 followers on Twitter^[17] and roughly 93,100 followers on TikTok.^[18]

Due to the virality of the meme trend, users on Twitter and elsewhere started making memes that unearthed different aspects of Baby Gronk's lore, history and background. For instance, on June 7th, 2023, Twitter^[9] user @BODY_W0_WHORGAN tweeted a screenshot of a Baby Gronk Instagram^[10] post that showed him with a woman and the caption, "HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM ❤️" (shown below, left). Twitter^[9] user @BODY_W0_WHORGAN wrote, "Seeing Baby Gronk's mum I'm like more and more certain he's Paul Atredis. This woman is our version of a bene gesserit," gaining roughly 11,200 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Twitter users also started to unearth so-called "Baby Gronk lore" by reposting his Instagram Reels. For instance, on June 7th, 2023, Twitter^[11] user @ettingermentum captioned a video (originally posted a day prior by Twitter^[12] user @dirtbagqueer) in which Baby Gronk said he was a clone, gaining roughly 2,200 likes in two days (shown below).

Baby Gronk vs. Baby Diggs

On May 9th, 2023, TikToker^[19] @babydiggs14 uploaded a video that tagged Baby Gronk's account. The TikToker @babydiggs14 was the account of another football kid who nicknamed himself Baby Diggs, in reference to the Buffalo Bills player Stefon Diggs. His debut TikTok^[19] gained roughly 474,400 plays and 29,300 likes in one month (shown below, left). The two's imagined rivalry eventually led to memes on the platform, such as a powerscaling edit posted by TikToker^[20] @thedrip.prince on May 23rd, 2023, that received roughly 12,300 likes in 17 days (shown below, right).

Criticism

On June 8th, 2023, TikToker^[14] @itsmedaygo posted a video in which he proclaimed that the "Baby Gronk hype" was "fake," alleging that Baby Gronk's parents had reached out to him through DMs to try and pay him to make a video about Baby Gronk. TikToker @itsmedaygo alleged that many of the videos about Baby Gronk online were posted because Baby Gronk's parents were paying notable creators. The video received roughly 356,000 plays and 48,900 likes in one day (shown below).

Baby Gronk Rizz King, Livvy Just Rizzed Him Up

Despite some prior memetic references on Twitter^[7] in 2022, Baby Gronk didn't achieve meme status until early 2023, coinciding with the Baby Gronk rizz king, Livvy just rizzed him up meme. The meme refers to a series of words uttered in a viral video on TikTok posted by TikToker^[8] h00pify on March 17th, 2023, in which he talked about Baby Gronk meeting Livvy Dune where he was purportedly "rizzed up" by Livvy. The video was perceived as cringe by many on social media, expressed via the reactions and duets to the video, as well as in memes made about the video that satirized the rizz nicknames and rizz-adjacent Zoomer slang terms that the backward-wearing baseball cap host originally used. Many made memes that also referenced the "Drip King" who Baby Gronk was imagined to take the place of in a secondary video from TikToker h00pify.