Like the Pyramids of Giza, the Lost City of Atlantis, and the exact recipe for the TikTok Pink Sauce, the origins of the Kevin James meme currently holding our timelines hostage is a mystery worth solving.
The photo of James, dressed in drab plaid, shoulders raised in a half-hearted shrug with a sly smirk directed to camera, has become the internet’s go-to translator. It’s littering our feeds with users personifying the actor’s “kid-caught-in-the-cookie-jar” pose to set up situational comedy bits that feel both relatable and designed to earn clicks. The meme itself isn’t extraordinary — it hails from a still of James in character from his beloved 90s sitcom King of Queens — but the fact that this man, a D-list celebrity who built his empire on laugh-tracked reruns and Adam Sandler sidekick gigs, has become the unlikely face branding the next hot form of pop culture currency is. It’s so extraordinary in fact that, we’ve done a bit of investigating into exactly why the guy who gave us not one but two Paul Blart: Mall Cop movies would be trending on social media on the same day that the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce dating rumors proved true.
According to Know Your Meme, the first usage of the Getty photo was via this tweet by a podcaster sent on September 21st, 2023:
me after 1 double rum and diet pic.twitter.com/zfJFNCuCbT
— andy from 5 to 7 (@ChampagneAnyone) September 22, 2023
A fairly innocuous bit of clickbait that just happened to go live on the 25th anniversary of the show itself, which James celebrated with an Instagram post shouting out his co-stars Leah Remini and Jerry Stiller. Was it a coordinated push or do King of Queens stans really exist in the wild? We just don’t know, but here our some of our favorite tweets using the now-iconic meme:
The Roman Empire pic.twitter.com/PNuOtS7NkD
— Mr. Dink (@NotTheMilkMan1) September 23, 2023
how i look when i beg my friends to take a pic of me pic.twitter.com/X3tcjbVR4v
— junebug (@swirlgirlxo) September 23, 2023
Taylor Swift when you ask her if she wants to eat a piece of chicken with ketchup and seemingly ranch pic.twitter.com/yrG7YGNHPt
— sally darr (@sallydarr) September 25, 2023
https://twitter.com/tannerblack5/status/1706146707996565938
And, lest one doubt James’ meme mojo, yet another image is now being circulated of the actor, this time from his Netflix movie Home Team. You’d likely have to be a regular on Football Twitter to get the joke, but it has something to do with Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton (who James played in the film) and his team’s embarrassing 70-20 loss to the Miami Dolphins this weekend.
The Sean Payton the Broncos signed pic.twitter.com/OU9MsDjQRu
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) September 24, 2023
There really is a Kevin James meme for every occasion it seems.
(Via Yahoo)