The origin of the Crying MJ meme

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On this day 16 years ago, the internet gave us the “Crying Michael Jordan” meme. pic.twitter.com/f12L3BJkje

— Know Your Meme (@knowyourmeme) September 11, 2025

“I told all my friends I was going to come up here and say ‘Thank you’ and walk off.”

It was seconds before this opening statement from Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech in 2019 that two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Stephan Savoia captured a historic photo of MJ crying in the Springfield Symphony Hall.

“I hit my shutter, rapid-fire,” Said Savoia in an interview with Yahoo. “And his head was up for maybe 10 seconds. Everybody turns around and looks and sees what’s going on and they’re scrambling for their cameras. By the time they did, he had wiped his eyes, and he was done crying. Nobody else had the picture. It was the best one I had. And it went out that night, two minutes after 9 o’clock, with ‘AP Photo/Stephan Savoia’ in the byline. That’s how it became exclusive. How it got to the internet, I have no idea.”

That photo went on to become a favorite on message boards in 2012 and then on social media a few years later. It became so mainstream that it was an answer on JEOPARDY.

It became so well known that Barack Obama referenced it while presenting MJ with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

The Crying MJ meme was such a thing that MJ himself made a joke about it during a eulogy for Kobe Bryant in 2020:

“Now he’s got me crying. I’ll have to look at another crying meme. I told my wife I wasn’t going to do this because I didn’t want to see that for the next three or four years.”

“I’m gonna have to look at another crying meme” -Michael Jordan pic.twitter.com/7SDIncQK4Z

— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) February 24, 2020

“I TOOK IT PERSONAL”

I can imagine MJ seeing these memes, “taking it personally,” and then wanting revenge. It doesn’t matter if you are a social media admin, an internet troll, or a random person just trying to make a harmless joke; MJ would want some form of revenge. I know this because I witnessed his career and recall the numerous times he found ways to motivate himself by becoming upset at something or someone and then seeking revenge.

Do you remember LaBradford Smith? He scored a career-high 37 against the Bulls and told MJ, “Nice game, Mike.” MJ reportedly told some media members he would match Smith’s 37 points in just the first half of the rematch. As crazy as that sounds, he almost did it. MJ knocked down his first eight shots and scored 36 points (he would have had 37 if not for a missed free throw) in the first half.

The Killer Instinct of Michael Jordan.LaBradford Smith said “nice one Mike”.#MichaelJordan #GOAT #KillerInstinct #NBA #TheLastDance

📷 The Last Dance pic.twitter.com/8FTpHloIzC

— Six Aces@12th Championship (@greenarcher1a) February 28, 2024

According to MJ, Smith was asking for mercy. If mercy was checking out in the third quarter with 47 points, then MJ did show some mercy.

There’s also great story about MJ getting revenge on Jeff Van Gundy, who called MJ a “con man” who befriends other players to gain a competitive advantage.

MICHAEL JORDAN’S REVENGE SPEECH

My favorite revenge story might be his Hall of Fame speech. After the birth of the Crying MJ meme, the GOAT spoke for 21 minutes, thanking loved ones and roasting people like Van Gundy and even the guy who made the final cut on his high school team:

“There’s Leroy Smith. Now you guys think that’s a myth. Leroy Smith was a guy, when I got cut he made the Varsity team. He’s here tonight and still the same 6’7″ guy. And bigger, probably his game is about the same. But he started the whole process with me because when he made the team and I didn’t, I wanted to prove not just to Leroy Smith, not just to myself, but to the coach that picked Leroy over me. I wanted to make sure you understood that you made a mistake dude.”

MJ ON BUZZ PETERSON

“He’s Player of the Year. I’m thinking, ‘Well, he ain’t never played against me yet, so how did he become Player of the Year?’ So Buzz became a dot on my board.”

MJ ON DOUG COLLINS

“When I was trying to play in the summertime, he said, “You’re a part of the organization, and the organization said you can’t play in the summertime.” I said, ‘Doug, you haven’t read the fine print in my contract. In my contract, I have a LOVE THE GAME CLAUS, which means I can play anytime and in any place I want.”

MJ ON PAT RILEY ABOUT JEFF VAN GUNDY

“You had your little guy who was on your staff and became the next coach after you. He said I conned the players. I befriended them and then attacked them on the basketball court.”

MJ ON JERRY KRAUSE

“I don’t know who invited him, I didn’t. I hope he understands, I hope he understands it goes a long way, and he was a very competitive person and I was a very competitive person. He said ‘organizations win championships’. I said, ‘I didn’t see organizations playing with the Flu in Utah. I didn’t see them playing with a bad ankle.’”

MJ ON THE MEDIA

“We had all those media nay-sayers. Oh ‘scoring champion can’t win an NBA title.’ Or ‘you’re not as good as Magic Johnson, you’re not as good as Larry Bird. You’re good, but you’re not as good as those guys.’ You know, I had to listen to all of this and that put so much wool on that fire that it kept me, each and every day, trying to get better as a basketball player. Now I’m not saying that they were wrong. I may have looked at it from a different perspective. But at the same time, as a basketball player I’m trying to become the best that I can, you know, and for someone like me who achieved a lot over the course of my career you look for any kind of messages that people may say or do to get you motivated to play the game of basketball at the highest level, because that is when I feel like I excel at my best.

MJ ON TEX WINTERS

“We are walking off the floor and Tex looks at me and says, ‘You know, there’s no ‘i’ in team’. I said, ‘Tex, there’s not, there’s not an ‘i’ in team but there’s an ‘i’ in win.’”

MJ ON BRYON RUSSELL

“I look over at Bryan and I said, ‘Do you remember this conversation you made in 1994 and said, ‘I think I can guard you, shut you down, and I would love to play against you?’ ‘Well, you about to get your chance.’ And believe me, ever since that day, he got his chance. And believe me, ever since that day, he got his chance. I don’t know how succeeding he was, but I think he had his chance, and believe me, I relished on that point and from this day forward if I ever see him in shorts I’m coming at him.

MJ ON THE HALL OF FAME

“They’re charging $1,000 tickets for this whole event. It used to be 200 bucks. But I paid it, you know, I had no choice. I had a lot of family, a lot of friends I had to bring in. So, thank you Hall of Fame for raising ticket prices, I guess.”

If MJ was annoyed with the ticket prices then how do you think John Stockton felt. He joked that a lot of the people that he brought were here to see the guy who prevented Stockton from winning two NBA Championships. MJ laughed at the joke but I wouldn’t be surprised if he also got some satisfaction from the thought of Stockton paying for tickets for people who just wanted to see the GOAT.