Sports are unpredictable. One moment, a player is clutching a championship; the next moment overshadows long years of hard work. One mistake and now they’re the face of a meme. Just ask JR Smith. He won two NBA titles, hit over 1,900 threes, and even earned Sixth Man of the Year. Yet, despite all that, one split-second mistake in 2018 still haunts his name. The problem? A viral photo caught him looking confused, and the internet never let go.

Other NBA memes have had their spotlight, of course. Think of Crying Jordan, a confused Nick Young, or Kawhi’s awkward laugh. But Smith’s “squinting” image had staying power. Back in 2018, The Ringer even placed it in the semifinals of their NBA Meme Bracket. And that is out of 64 such incidents captured! That’s how iconic it became. Now, for some, it might not have been a big deal. But for Smith, though, it couldn’t have felt like a badge of honor. It symbolized the moment his mental slip cost Cleveland Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

So, how did the meme come about? Let’s rewind to Game 1 of the 2018 Finals. With the score tied and under five seconds left, George Hill missed a free throw. Smith grabbed the rebound, then things fell apart. Instead of taking a shot or passing to LeBron, he dribbled away, looking unsure. Cameras captured LeBron’s reaction: arms flailing, face full of disbelief. And then it happened. The camera captured Smith’s face: squinting and dazed. The result? The Cavs lost in overtime.

What’s worse? The moment felt like the turning point. Cleveland never recovered and got swept by Golden State. The finals were over in four games. That single mistake became the defining moment of the series.

Now imagine being in Smith’s shoes, having to relive the moment the team lost such a huge game because of your mistake, and that in the form of a meme! The burden must have been huge. Years later, Smith opened up about it. When asked about the Finals blunder, he didn’t deflect. Instead, he showed rare honesty. “I’ve messed up so many times in my life,” Smith told Washington. “I mean, I can’t just point at one thing to be mad at.” That says a lot. He didn’t hide from the ridicule. He owned it like someone who’s learned to live with imperfection. For Smith, the meme doesn’t define him, rather, it’s just one chapter in a story full of highs, lows, and lessons.

Josiah Johnson’s take on meme culture and respect for JR Smith

The documentary Memes and Nightmares takes a thoughtful look beyond the laughter of the famous JR Smith squinting meme. It dives into the real-life impact this viral joke had on Smith. And as it did so, it ended up showing a side rarely seen in meme culture. Josiah Johnson shares his own experience with the meme and the empathy he developed toward Smith.

In the documentary, he highlighted how Smith’s meme ignores the full picture of his life. “You see him go to North Carolina A&T and make the honor roll and the dean’s list,” Johnson says. “You get to sit with him and have actual conversations. It forced me to take a step back and kind of analyze my place and [role] in helping to elevate this stuff, and also try to be the change and move it in the right direction.” 

Later, when he talked with uInterview, he discussed, “So J.R. Smith’s squinting meme is a meme of J.R. Smith. Squinting in eyes like this has a lot of different interpretations, representations.” Yet, he explains the downside: “But I think the main thing and what we try to highlight in the film is that it created a lot of negativity in J.R. Smith’s own life every time he would see it.”

The documentary shows how the meme, while funny to many, caused real harm. It was only after getting to know the former NBA champion up close did Johnson realize how digital jokes can cause distress in the real world too! So he didn’t just let the fact pass by, Out of respect and friendship, Johnson stopped using the meme himself.

It was interesting to see Johnson putting himself in Smith’s shoes as he even became a meme in the film! “I have to get a taste of my own medicine and learn what happens, you know, when things go wrong like that,” he claimed. The documentary encourages viewers to think about the real people behind viral content.