Everything you need to know about the Tiger Woods Braves meme that's sweeping the Internet
On Sunday night, the Braves topped Jacob deGrom and the Mets, 7-3. The team's Twitter account, as team Twitter accounts often do, celebrated with a victory tweet. Let's just take a quick look at some of the replies:
— Austin Selby (@AustinSelby9) April 15, 2019
Wait, is that Tiger Woods celebrating after winning the 2019 Masters? Clearly that person must've gotten their Georgia sports accounts confused and replied in the wrong place.
— Seth Landry (@SethBLandry) April 15, 2019
Is that Freddie Freeman in a green jacket? Uh ...
@cayladee12 pic.twitter.com/OA0JC8fBzZ
— Addi Broadfoot (@addi_broadfoot) April 15, 2019
Dansby Swanson, is that you?
— Brian McCann's Beard (@McCanns_Beard) April 15, 2019
... I need to lie down.
No, you haven't been sucked into the Twilight Zone. Over the past couple of weeks, Braves fans have turned Tiger Woods into one of the weirdest memes of 2019 -- wherever Atlanta baseball is being discussed on the internet, Tiger is there.
But just what does it mean? How did it start? And why does everyone's avatar include a photo of Woods looking like someone just took his dog hostage off-camera?
Huge day for the @Braves. #SundayNightBaseball pic.twitter.com/OzP5VUwQad
— MLB (@MLB) April 15, 2019
It began, as these things often do, as a throwaway gag. A few years ago, Scott Coleman, a writer for the SB Nation Braves site Talking Chop, happened upon a peculiar photo. It is, in its own weird way, a perfect encapsulation of watching a baseball game slip away from your favorite team: There's Woods, in a suit, smiling ... but in a way that makes you suspect that his dog has just been taken hostage off-camera.
As Coleman explained on the Talking Chop podcast:
It¡¯s from years ago, he looks young in it. For whatever reason a few years back, I posted it once. it¡¯s one of those, it¡¯s easier to laugh than to cry. I posted it once and it kind of caught on and it¡¯s been my thing for however many years now.
After a tough loss early in the 2019 season, Coleman and some other Braves fans busted it out again -- and from there, a meme was born. It popped up everywhere, from avatars to the mentions of rival teams, the hilariously flop-sweaty rallying cry of an entire fan base.
— Doug (@doug_westover) April 5, 2019
And then the internet did its thing.
— Joh? Michael Dorough (@John_Michael_D) April 5, 2019
— Cassie Hutto (@iCassieHutto) April 5, 2019
— ??? ?????? ????? ????? (@TheBrantWhite) April 5, 2019
Before too long, it had gone mainstream.
You don¡¯t have to understand it, you just have to respect it.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) April 5, 2019
Braves SWEEP! #ChopOn pic.twitter.com/BEyZAqpOTf
What began as the embodiment of baseball fan anxiety has since morphed into a flex, a way for fans to dunk on all comers after the increasingly white-hot Braves notch another win. And with Woods now back and roaring like it's 2005, this thing shows no signs of slowing down.
