The Kevin Durant “You Know What Really Grinds My Gears” World Tour continues with a lengthy profile in GQ Magazine. In it, Durant reinforces his newfound worldview and attitude towards his public persona and abandoning the Mr. Nice Guy image for someone who tells it like it is. That includes all you people who put big white letters over pictures and turned his emotional MVP speech into what the kids call a “meme.”
You the real MVP. People repeating it in awe at work the next day. And then in a week, less than a week, people repeating it with heretic glee, joking about it even. It becomes a punch line, something guys on Reddit say to one another. A virtual high five over a comic Vine. You the real MVP, person who actually pays for Netflix.
“I was like, man, that was a real emotional moment for me, and you making a joke about it! Like: Damn. Y’all don’t really believe in shit. You don’t have no morals or nothing. You don’t care about nothing but just making fun.”
How are you supposed to act in the world, when people feel entitled even to a moment like that?
“I was serious as hell saying that, you know what I’m saying?”
That speech was one of the coolest, realest sports moments in recent memory. And if Durant doesn’t want people using it for cheap internet jokes, he’s entitled to that.
The media, meme makers, who’s next on Durant’s list? My vote would be for Bill Simmons, just because nothing draws pageviews like a good Simmons feud.
* And yes it was very difficult to resist the temptation to say the new outspoken version of Kevin Durant is the real MVP in the writing of this article.
