The recent pre-apology by Amanda Beckinwith, CEO of Millennial Now Solutions Inc, seems to have caught on, and we are hearing reports of more and more people taking advantage of this ingenious technique to defuse tensions and recriminations before they even occur. Here is a prominent example from LeBron James:

I want to apologize in advance to all the basketball fans out there who have spent years deepening their knowledge of the game through dedicated television viewing and keen observation of on-screen graphics for failing to do whatever it is they will think I should have done at a crucial moment. I know that my failure to make a drive to the hoop or pass the rock at just the moment you will think I should will make you, for just a moment, doubt your own understanding of basketball. This may lead you to, perhaps only dimly, question why the greatest passions in your life are born from watching others actually living lives.

Being that I am the greatest player on the planet, people naturally look to me to embody the most elevated potentials of human accomplishment in sport. I am a cynosure and a symbol for all that you hope for and dream of. A moment’s contemplation will show you the impossibility of my task: even I cannot be the fulfillment of billions of different dreams. Nonetheless, it is my responsibility to consistently demonstrate the absolute far edge of human capability, to define, if you will, the boundaries of your dreams. When I show any imperfection, as I must, I let down all of humankind. And you all suffer.

I hope this pre-apology will serve as some consolation to all of you as you watch my exploits on the court in coming games, especially if this series should advance to a decisive game seven, drawing in millions and millions more viewers, each of whom of course is also a dreamer. I know the discomfort you will feel as you wish for me to rise higher than even I can rise before releasing a jump shot and you are forced to contemplate at once the ultimate fallen-ness of the human condition and your own stunning inferiority to the finest examples of our species. This must be very difficult for you.

I am truly sorry for that moment of clarity you will experience as you imagine me looking back at you through the television screen, and you see, as if a light suddenly shone on it, the sordid state of your surroundings and the stunted condition of your heart. You will find yourself in your armchair clutching your failed dreams like a bouquet of dead beer cans. I hope when that moment of keen despair strikes, whether as I lose a dribble or my buzzer-beater clanks, that you will look at these words and be buoyed by my wisdom. We are all of us, even the greatest among us, failures.

Read another preemptive apology, this one from a CEO before she dives into an extramarital affair.