Howdy, and TGIMFF amirite? Wednesday night and Thursday were busy times for Texas A&M football in the news. Let Jimmy catch you up here as only he can. Blistering opinions everywhere. These are some of the worst Twitter things to come out of the whole incident, in no particular order:
Tate Martell, The Online Presence.
The actual one. This kid's legend continues to build. He has rosined up his social media bow and called a tune that no one can resist dancing to. He is artful in his manipulation, efficient with his activity, and displays an optimal mix of bravado and patronizing interest in every school he mentions. And you know who's mostly to blame? Those of us doing the dancing. Check out Jay Arnold's thoughts here, they're really good.
Coach Moorehead.
Dude. C'mon. Part of your job is to develop relationships and build bridges with the best high school coaches and players in Texas. This is not the way to go about it. We get that you had to work hard to get where you are and we all respect that, but that doesn't give you a free pass to sound off on social media. On the other hand, perhaps he's re-energized the #WRTS brand: We Regret This Subtweet.
Bringing up Baylor.
Look, there were far too many of these popping up everywhere on Aggie social media in the immediate aftermath. It's fine if you don't think Baylor is getting enough attention, because something like that can never get too much. But the minute you mention this useless recruiting thing in the same breath, your tweet becomes callous and slimy and hurts everyone's cause. It marginalizes a serious institutional flaw that puts people at risk. No matter how noble your intentions were, in the eyes of an outside reader you compared the two by combining the separate ideas.It becomes a classic deflection tactic employed by countless obnoxious college football fans and cements our rankings here. You know why you're seeing more coverage of it for a couple days? Because we lost two five-star QBs in December and had one de-commit in May and our recent Heisman QB has been all over the headlines for the wrong reasons. It's a story. It's going to get a few news cycles. The Baylor thing is also a story. It's a more daunting and difficult story to expose and people must take their time and do it the right way. Don't worry, people are still going to hate what happened there long after they've forgotten about Tate Martell. Horrible, life-altering news has no expiration date, as evidenced by the latest discoveries in the Penn State case yesterday.
Parody accounts.
Good lord. "Mate Tartell." "The Taint Martell." Thing is, unless you are the same age or younger than the actual Tate Martell this is ridiculously stupid. And if you are a teenager doing this, then it's only mildly stupid. There are more creative ways of insulting someone than rhyming. Start with Shakespeare and work your way into the present.
Tweetin' at teens.
Obviously this was going to cause a lot of Internet vigilantes to tell Tate just how much they hate him, think he sucks, and wish him ill will now that he's not "committed" to our school. But some took it a bit further and started harassing his sister as well. This is the type of human behavior that counteracts thousands of years of hard evidence that we are more sophisticated than insects.
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