The Social Media Activities Of 15 Year Olds Are Not Worth Your Attention
It was inevitable in the aftermath of the Michigan State game: websites looking for #content tell their unpaid intern to type in Blake O'Neill's twitter handle and report back with all the bad things they find there. Copy and paste and you have #viral #content for your crapsite.
That's right! It's a screenshot of a screenshot tweet! Original did not black out usernames FWIW.
Once the crapsites have aggregated their #content, larger players step in to say the most blindingly obvious things possible: that is bad. Don't do that. Something something society. It's obvious that the larger players don't do much more than read the sensationalized headlines thrown out without considering whether they are justified.
Arguing with crapsite proprietors is fruitless since they have found out they have no ability to acquire viewership through doing good work. But I would like to emphasize that I went through every account on both of those posts (neither of which contains a death threat, by the way) in an effort to see if there was something these twitter users have in common. Aside from one Sorry For Partying type named Mitch* who seems to be a current student and a random, lonely Patriots fan with a sad attempt at facial hair, this is what they look like.
it goes without saying but don't harass these children
They are literally children. The third and fourth are the "death threat" issuers**. They are about as dangerous as an egg salad sandwich. They are approximately 15. They spend 90% of every day thinking about how great it will be when they get to put their hand up a girl's shirt. They represent nothing other than the fact that a healthy slice of teenage boys don't know how to act. I and much of the readership will know this from personal experience. We were fortunate to not have twitter.
Scolding these kids is pointless. They will learn, and then there will be a new generation of them writing the same stuff on FaceSnaps 2030. Extrapolating anything about any fanbase from the portion of it that has a phone but not a driver's license is equally pointless. If you're going to report on it you should know that your next article should be about what Becky told Morgan in the locker room about McKinley.
We now have "global access to the written opinions of morons." It sucks for Blake O'Neill that Scott Tenorman got all up in his mentions, but it's worse that #content farms continually try to spin the hormonal excesses of the nation's youth into pageviews. Twitter should seek to implement a technological fix for this kind of pile-on. Until they do the snap decisions of children should be ignored by people who don't know them.
Go ahead and be proud of the fact that your reject these notions if you have such low expectations of yourself. Be proud of the fact that you think cancer sucks, too, while you're at it. It's about as useful an activity. One day we will beat twitter and cancer by scowling about them on the internet. You just wait.
*[You suck, Mitch.]
**[It should be noted again that neither of those tweets is any kind of threat. As far as terrible things said to people in the aftermath of Bad Sports Event go if that's the best you can come up with things are going pretty well.]
October 19th, 2015 at 3:19 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 19th, 2015 at 3:35 PM ^
I don't social media. My wife (who cares less about football/sports than egg salad) told me she heard about death threats to "that guy who fumbled". I refused to go out and find these sites because I will not give them clicks. I was also thinking it was pretty bad. Thanks Brian for summing up the few things that some sites blew way out of proportion.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:37 PM ^
If blogs and national media are going to badmouth our fans over some teenagers tweets, then you know damn right that Brian is going to badmouth those outlets for being lazy writers hitting the easy button.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:50 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 4:35 PM ^
Whats up?
October 19th, 2015 at 3:20 PM ^
Great article, thank you. Decidedly lacking in chicken-littling, the writing on this site is (I'm apparently channeling Yoda on account of POSTER and TRAILER, nevermind).
FWIW, I've not read a single M football news site other than this one since IT on Saturday because of articles like this and none of the sort involving histrionics over plummenting atmosphere.
Thank you.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:36 PM ^
I honestly think Jim Hackett erred when he put out a missive on this subject. He has had an otherwise stellar 1 year in the AD chair but this was a decidedly Dave Brandon moment. Let sleeping 15 year olds lie.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:55 PM ^
On one hand, I tend to agree, and I'd imagine that if presented with the additional info that Brian dug up Hackett might not have issued the statement.
On the other hand, my immediate reaction to the news that Blake was getting bombed on twitter was a desire to tweet support at Blake (which I did not do, because (a) nobody should care about Random Internet Guy offering support to them, and (b) I assumed that he has been counseled to stay the hell away from twitter for awhile), or retweet some supportive tweets from Devin Gardner or other guys with ties to the program.
Neither of those is a fruitful response coming from random fan base members such as myself--but the statement of support from Hackett at least puts it out there, clearly, and from a source that is likely to filter down to Blake himself, that the real fan base doesn't wish any harm on Blake and in fact fully supports him.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^
October 20th, 2015 at 5:28 AM ^
And if it truly was a Brandon moment, it would have been released at 1:00 am.
October 19th, 2015 at 6:57 PM ^
You're right in that 15 year olds saying the first nonsensical thought that pops into their head out loud, is not worth responding to. The problem with doing that on Twitter (I BET their parents took away their electronics afterwards) is that once something is "out there" it requires some sort of response. Hackett's letter was perfect.
Wasn't it pretty obvious that this was kids ar work? That was certainly our thought, hearing this on the radio while taking 45 minutes to drive 12 feet.
As AD, Hackett he is responsible for setting a tone, and the correct tone was set - from the top. He even said, this is not representative of this institution. Which leads me to believe he probably had the same thought from the getgo, that this was the work of younger teenagers.
His letter was spot on.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:20 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 3:35 PM ^
Oh yeah. It's going to kill us. That is why I wish the bye week was on Halloween instead of this weekend. A nice road victory this coming Saturday would have done wonders for my broken psyche.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:21 PM ^
eggsalad...salmonella...dangerous as f*ck. If you've ever had salmonella poisoning, you know you'd glady trade those 48 hours of heaving misery for 48 hours of watching that failed punt and MSU juggalos celebrating, eyes propped open, Clockwork Orange style.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:55 PM ^
I wouldn't have minded a few death threats.
Blake O'Neill is an Aussie. He faced down worse dangers walking to school. Everything in Australia will kill you, if it doesn't just eat you first.
Now, if they really want to get to him, they need to mention Mick Dundee. Pikers!
October 19th, 2015 at 3:23 PM ^
I hope that doesn't make people shy away from sending words of encouragement to O'Neill himself, though.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:23 PM ^
White people need to raise their children better.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:59 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 19th, 2015 at 4:13 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 3:24 PM ^
Lost Lettermen is an Ohio guy if memory serves.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:29 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 19th, 2015 at 4:32 PM ^
Haha. He's actually a Michigan grad and is a pretty entertaining guy on twitter. The site ocassionally has good stuff but I can't deny that the O'Neill twitter hot takes are garbage.
October 19th, 2015 at 5:24 PM ^
Surprised by that because some of the diggs I've seen him take.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:25 PM ^
Those kids are as about as maniacal as a box of kittens.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:27 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 4:08 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 3:30 PM ^
This is exactly why I felt the letter from Hackett was unneccesary. We didn't need a press release to denounce the actions of a handful of 15-year-olds.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:36 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 3:39 PM ^
Maybe not, but it looks like the worst ones were, and the end result is that kids who said something stupid to another person in a moment of immature anger are now on display before the entire fanbase. Man I'm glad I didn't grow up with twitter.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:42 PM ^
Completely agree - twitter, facebook, etc... I am very glad that every dumb thing I did in my youth is not stored electronically ad infinitum. I feel bad for my kids.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:50 PM ^
Agreed, but I think the Dave Brandon method of handling public relations (ignore them till they blow up in your face) is still fresh in the AD's collective mind, and once the "trash sites" had started playing up the death threats angle, a statement from the AD was appropriate. Maybe not necessary, but appropriate. Make your public display of support, get it out of the way, move on.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:05 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 6:16 PM ^
The perception is that this is a big deal even if a deeper investigation shows it was not. But more to the point, it shows Hackett is publicly behind his player, which we all would have suspected, but is nice to have confirmed.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:14 PM ^
did. In fact, I think it's good to see a university at least make an attempt to reign in their disrespectful, bad fans. Yes, it is probably fruitless. But, it sends the message that they are concerned about the impact bad fan behavior can have on other people. I'd guess few other schools have made any attempt to control the actions of their Visigoth fans. Cough, cough, Ohio State, cough cough.
Also, in further defense of Hackett (as someone above already pointed out), he didn't have the information Brian just wrote but wanted to not wait to take some sort of action.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:33 PM ^
I'd guess few other schools have made any attempt to control the actions of their Visigoth fans. Cough, cough, Ohio State, cough cough.
Your overarching point is well taken but it rates mention that former OSU president Karen Holbrook did issue a statement about a loud minority of OSU fans acting like complete assholes when Texas visited. And the collective reaction of the OSU fanbase was endless scorn and contempt towards Holbrook for throwing them all under the bus.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:33 PM ^
I fucking hate teenagers. There is no larger group then theirs who will talk all kinds of shit while hiding behind their keyboards, but when it comes to doing it in person*, they show that they are what they are, that being scared children.
*I always laugh when reading or hearing a teenager's response to that, which is, "Oh no, I'd say it in person, too."
No. No you would not.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:44 PM ^
are we making an assumption that all threats to O'Neil were made on twitter and that the University need not respond.
I don't think Hackett is the type to respond to this if it wasn't warranted, perhaps we aren't seeing all the threats that were made.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:04 PM ^
Are you saying Hackett has Secret Twitter?
October 19th, 2015 at 3:44 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 3:46 PM ^
She isn't qualified to write an article on pig racing much less a football game.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:06 PM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 4:09 PM ^
Just awful.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:06 PM ^
She may actually be over qualified to report on pig racing. There's poetry in motion in their races.
October 20th, 2015 at 9:28 AM ^
She should have a horrible show like Wendy Williams or something for people with nothing better to do who want to hear horrible opinions.
Oh wait maybe ESPN really is a good place for her then.
October 19th, 2015 at 3:53 PM ^
Another example proving Brian's point that "little brother" is the perfect descriptor for MSU's program. If you want to be the big brother, act like the big brother, not a petulent child.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^
Wasn't she either a MSU beat writer or maybe a writer for the MSU student paper or something? I remember she was an MSU columnist locally years back.
October 19th, 2015 at 4:24 PM ^
MSU football & basketball beat writer for the Free Press from '99-'05.
Comments