If you were to ask me, I would tell you that Lebron James is the GOAT. For basketball, I feel like that’s obvious, but I think he even has a case for the greatest athlete to ever live. This is high praise, but Lebron is the one who got me into sports in a lot of ways. My first pair of basketball shoes were a pair of Lebron Soldier VIIs, and I played in Lebrons for years following this purchase.
Lebron has been a foundational figure in the sports world for over twenty years, and his dominance has permeated the basketball world from the moment he stepped onto an NBA court. He entered the league in 2003, just months after I was born, placing himself at the forefront of the first generation of basketball fans that grew up online. This unique situation has cemented Lebron as a staple on the internet in the form of memes, hoop mixes and most recently, songs.
Over the past few weeks, my Instagram feed has been flooded with parody songs about Lebron by human creators and AI alike. According to Know Your Meme, these songs started on March 5, 2025, when a TikTok user by the name of @itsokayspade posted the first of many “Lebron Glaze Songs.”
The first song featured only the words “Lebron” and “James.” The video’s on-screen text read, “POV: you try to make a song about LeBron but you can’t sing nothing else but his name cuz he da goat and stuff.” In just a day, the video accrued over 2 million views. The trend has gone viral since then, with dozens of creators uploading similar videos.
This trend is certainly funny, but what I think makes it more interesting is the fact that so many sports fans, many of whom are hyper-masculine, are willing to put aside this masculinity to “glaze” their favorite player.
This is something that I can’t remember ever happening in my life, especially in the sports community. Even the term “glaze” was originally meant to be a negative term for overpraising someone, yet here we are in a time when men are making entire songs dedicated to Lebron. Some of the songs are more egregious than others, but here are lines from a few of my favorites:
From a parody of “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar: “Down 3-1 he came back and beat the sniper. He was so good Golden State needed KD. Bron is never stopping he’ll be playing till he’s 80.”
A parody of “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber: “I don’t like you. I just like Lebron. And you cannot tell me that I’m acting wrong. And I’ve been so caught up with my fling didn’t appreciate my king, but now I know I better glaze him on my own.”
A parody of Panic at the Disco’s “I write Sins not tragedies”: “Lebron James is a name that everybody has heard of. Better than Michael Jordan ‘cause MJ never had this kind of glaze, but it’s not glaze ‘cause it’s Lebron oh.”
These songs, and many others, are different from the typical ways people are willing to discuss athletes. This shows a clear change in internalized perceptions of masculinity, even within the short time that words like “glaze” have been popularized.
The internet has changed what it means to be a man in many ways (both good and bad), and it seems that Lebron is part of that. If glazing Lebron doesn’t count because it’s Lebron, how long until mutual male admiration is the norm on the internet?
Potentially not as long as one would think. In an era where toxic masculinity runs rampant online, songs about your favorite player becoming commonplace could be a welcome addition to the internet and sports culture alike.
The other interesting thing that these songs are doing is giving a recap of Lebron’s career from fans’ perspectives. It is not uncommon for sports media personalities to rehash great players’ careers. Presumably, the people creating these parodies are not professional basketball analysts but rather normal fans sharing conversations between friends and fellow fans.
Now let me get into the really important part of this trend. Nobody ever made songs about how deeply they loved Michael Jordan. Jordan never redefined masculinity in the way Lebron is doing right now. Jordan never came back from down 3-1. He never even sniffed 50,000 points.
This is yet another nail in the proverbial coffin that is Lebron James’s GOAT case. No other athlete has been loved, respected, and above all, glazed the way Lebron is. So as Uncle Shannon Sharpe would say, Tik Tok song, money long, ring the gong … Lakers in 5.
Mac Kelley PZ ’25 is an avid NBA fan, and an even bigger Lebron fan. He enjoys spending time hating on 90s basketball and explaining advanced analytics to old heads. Specifically people who can’t handle the fact that 3 is worth more than 2.
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