Last week, I was giddy like a school girl when I saw that Jack McBrayer, AKA Kenneth from my favorite show, “30 Rock”, was following me on Twitter, because as someone who watches roughly 4-6 episodes of “30 Rock” each day, that would be pretty cool. Of course it was a fake account, with someone just pretending to be McBrayer, which led a few of us to wonder, “Who the f*ck pretends to be Jack McBrayer?” And the moral of this edition of #CoolStoryBro is that people on Twitter are f*cking weird.
Case in point, yesterday there were two huge “rumors” that blew up on Twitter regarding NBA Draft news. The first came yesterday afternoon via a Tweet:
Upon first glance, you’re probably thinking, “Holy crap, are the Celtics out of their f*cking minds?” And a lot of people thought that, because it was retweeted more than 1,100 times. But if you’re more adept and you actually read stuff before reacting, you’ll notice that A) Chris Broussard’s name is misspelled, and 2) the real Broussard has almost 500,000 followers. You’d think it would be pretty obvious.
But it wasn’t, as the rumor spread so far, so fast that it actually became a news story in Boston. People were ready to rip Danny Ainge’s body to pieces and send them to the corners of Massacusetts as a warning.
To quote the legendary rap group Onyx, B-B-B-BUT WAIT IT GETS WORSE!
Hours later, another Twitter rumor spread, this time that Kevin Garnett – a possible trade piece for the Celtics if they’re trying to rebuild quickly – was retiring.
Again, another fake ESPN analyst account that people didn’t bother to take 4 seconds to read before they freaked the f*ck out and RT’d it 3,200 times. And there are more, including a fake Adrian Wojnarowski, inspired by the fake Adam Schefter that fooled thousands of people during the NFL Draft. They all brag about their success, this cabal of Twitter sports trolls, as if these are the greatest accomplishments of their lives.
On one hand, it is pretty funny, because it further fuels my demand that Twitter should require an IQ test for people to have accounts. On the other hand, I have no F-ing clue what’s going on in the NBA right now, because anyone can Tweet the simplest hope – “I wish the Pistons could trade Charlie Villanueva for LeBron James.” – and it’ll be carried by at least 5 people.
And this sucks, because I’d rather be bored with no news than excited by fake news. In conclusion, this is why we need a new plague.
