James Van Der Beek's Daughter Had the Best Reaction to Crying Meme From Dawson's Creek
James Van Der Beek shared how his kids found his viral crying face meme and started trolling him.
James Van Der Beek has had a lot of roles in his long acting career, but he is most famous for a meme.
The ugly-crying meme was created from one scene in Dawson's Creek, a popular teen show airing on The WB from 1998 to 2003.
Though the show ended much earlier than the meme culture was born, the modern-generation fans couldn't pass by one scene in the Season 3 finale featuring James Van Der Beek's Dawson Leery burst into tears after finding out his long-time love interest Katie Holmes' Joey Potter was in love with another man.
The moment was clearly meant to be heartbreaking, but viewers thought Dawson's ugly crying was so hilarious that it deserved to be looped for eternity. And so the Dawson Crying meme has become the hallmark of both Dawson's Creek and its star.
James Van Der Beek once discussed the meme with EW, describing it as his "favorite thing about the show." The actor explained that he found it hilarious how the internet managed to reduce his six-year work on the set of Dawson's Creek to one gif.
Over the years, Van Der Beek got used to being trolled with the meme. The actor said on several occasions that he didn't mind and considered it funny and hilarious. And looks like the friendly trolling is not going anywhere now his kids are getting old enough to navigate the internet.
Van Der Beek is a proud father of six beautiful kids, Olivia, 12, Joshua, 10, Annabel, 8, Emilia, 6, Gwendolyn, 4, and Jeremiah, 1. The actor told People he got iPads for his oldest kids so that they could learn online. However, the children used the new gadgets not for learning only.
They quickly discovered memes depicting their father, and soon Van Der Beek got the crying meme in a message from his eldest, Olivia.
"She immediately hit me with the cry face. I thought, 'That's aggressive,'" the actor recalled, laughing.
Van Der Beek added he often talked to his children, who just start to comprehend the notion of popularity, about fame and his exposure to it. The actor said wherever they went, his eldest son Joshua could instantly "sniff out" when people recognized his father.