We can retire the phrase “dunking on,” now that Lebron James dunked on actual children

On the internet, we like to talk about people dunking on other people. It’s a clean narrative of supremacy originating in one of the most electrifying moves in sports, when a player rises and manually, thunderously puts numbers on the board, preferably as an opposing player looks on from the floor. It implies not just dominance but a sense of revelry in it, of purposely showboating in someone else’s moment of defeat. Dunking on people is great. Watching people get dunked on is even better.

What if one of the world’s greatest practitioners of real-life jams showed up to literally dunk on a bunch of children? That is what Lebron James spent the weekend doing, as evidenced by this video footage of him at his son’s birthday party.