What Is The Viral Dawson Crying Reaction Image? The Viral Reaction Image Explained

The Dawson Crying meme, also known as James Van Der Beek Crying, is a cult classic reaction image on the internet that has been used extensively to display remorse, sorrow, or pity. The original still image comes from a 1990s dramatic TV show called Dawson's Creek, which saw lots of usage back in the early days of 9GAG and Reddit.

But what is the origin of this classic meme, and how did it become viral online? Here's everything you need to know.

Where Is The Dawson Crying Meme's Origin?

The origin of the still image, or GIF, comes from the season three finale of Dawson's Creek, entitled "True Love," on May 24th, 2000. Dawson ends the episode by telling his longtime romantic partner Joey to be with their mutual friend Pacey. He then ends the conversation by breaking down and crying, saying "Just Go" as Joey leaves him. The original scene was then uploaded to YouTube six years later by notdatbigyet, entitled "Dawson's Crying Face." The post received more than 960,000 views in more than 17 years (shown below).

How Did Dawson Crying Spread?

After the upload of the original video on YouTube, screengrabs of Dawson's crying face were spread online in a multitude of reaction images and memes. On August 8th, 2008, the "I Will Dare" Blog used the image as the header photograph for an article entitled "The 10 Best Episodes of Dawson’s Creek, a list because Polly asked and the draft was still there." (shown below, left). The following year, another blogger by the name of Becky Yamamoto used the photo in her article "There's no crying in life" (shown below, right).

The image would then see further use in other more notable websites online. Funny Or Die, collaborated with James Van Der Beek to create jamesvandermemes.com on January 3rd, 2011, which was a collection of people making a variety of faces that Van Der Beek also made. On the same day, they also published a GIF Van Der Beek recreating the cry.

How Is Dawson Crying Used In Memes?

The Dawson Crying meme became officially viral once it was added to the Meme Generator website on July 25th, 2011. Since then, it generated more than 23,000 posts (example shown below).

Since its fruition, the Dawson crying meme has been primarily used to mock or tease first-world problems, especially people who are incredibly entitled and don't have any actual real-world problems in their lives. One example is captioned "My iPhone force updated me to IOS 11, now I have over 20 older apps that won't work" (shown below). Dawson essentially became the face of every rich man's problems, particularly those who have nothing else to worry about.

For the full history of Dawson Crying, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.