Sudden Worship

Origin

"Surprise worship" refers to dropping sudden praise for a particular figure into a post or conversation that has nothing to do with them. It is now almost inseparable from the League of Legends pro player Faker (Lee Sang-hyeok), but the format did not begin with him.

Its root is the sentence "now that I think about it, X really is amazing." According to Namuwiki's account, it started around 2018 on the Korean basketball community NBA Mania, where posts about one player's slump or misfortune would draw comments along the lines of "now that I think about it, LeBron really is amazing." It was a way of hijacking a thread about someone's failure by abruptly praising someone else.

When that habit shifted its target to Faker, it acquired the name "surprise worship." It was not a friendly coinage. The phrase was used to mock the phenomenon itself — praise for Faker surfacing in places it had no business being — and it read closer to ridicule.

Spread

As a Gameple article lays out, the meme changed character over the Worlds seasons. Faker kept delivering on the biggest stages, the sarcastic component thinned, and "it suddenly strikes me how amazing Faker is" came to be used half in earnest.

The culmination was official adoption. When an exhibition honoring Faker was held, the organizers built a dedicated "surprise worship zone," taking the meme up wholesale. A phrase users had coined to mock became a signposted corner at an event on the subject's own side.

The format remains portable. Swap the subject and the same move works in any field, so it keeps being reproduced as a way of abruptly summoning whoever is unquestioned in one's own domain.