Misinformation goblin Kellyanne Conway on Thursday justified Donald Trump’s ban on Muslims entering the United States by referencing the Bowling Green Massacre, a thing that never happened.
Much like a hanging curveball to Mike Trout, Twitter spent the rest of the day and following morning knocking Bowling Green Massacre jokes out of the park. The biggest victim here is Bowling Green University, which had to absorb joke after joke about its sports teams. Totally worth it, I say.
Here’s a great one that has been making the rounds since Thursday night. It’s really wonderful. It frames “massacre” as a 67-point loss as opposed to mass murder. This guy is great.
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/827368623278796802
And here’s the same joke made 11 hours later using a different way of presenting the material. They almost definitely thought of it on their own.
Bowling Green Massacre pic.twitter.com/p3UquibSKA
— Daily Snark (@DailySnark) February 3, 2017
But Bowling Green has been massacred many other times and people were all over it.
Bomani Jones went with the 31-point loss to Northern Illinois, which isn’t quite the same as a 67-point massacre, but it’s clever because he went back to 2011, the year of the fictional massacre Conway mentioned.
guys, i found the 2011 bowling green massacre. stop pretending this didn't happen. pic.twitter.com/1jCJo2EWMB
— bomani (@bomani_jones) February 3, 2017
The poor BGSU football team.
So many being unfair to @KellyannePolls There WAS a Bowling Green Massacre. It was when the BGU Falcons lost to Miami of Ohio 55-0.
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) February 3, 2017
Virginia Tech joined the fun, although their social media manager shied away from using the phrase “Bowling Green Massacre,” which is not a real thing so it’s OK. Don’t you want to show up in searches?
Gonna drop this right here & back away slowly
Virginia Tech – 37
Bowling Green – 0#FBF – Sept. 22, 2012 #Hokies 🦃 pic.twitter.com/uCXq9fDKtV— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) February 3, 2017
Then there was the time the Western Kentucky mascot ate a cheerleader. Thoughts and prayers to her family.
#BowlingGreenMassacre pic.twitter.com/QEp2o8Mb0K
— Molly Shah (@MollyOShah) February 3, 2017
But all it did was lead to putting the mascot in charge of protecting Americans.
https://twitter.com/JasonKirkSBN/status/827515107194335233
(Note: WKU is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky. If you’re like me, you spent part of your morning wondering why the mascot was being used in Bowling Green jokes, and that’s why. Live and learn.)
There was also our very own Isaac, who used the Bowling Green Massacre to open up about something awful that happened to him — he ate chicken wings.
https://twitter.com/WorldofIsaac/status/827482871283773440
Dodgers pitcher Brandon McCarthy really put the event into perspective for everyone.
I worried that as a society we'd become numb to violence but our collective forgetting of the Bowling Green massacre means it's happened
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) February 3, 2017
Someone even chose to share footage of the massacre. Warning: Strong images not suitable for children to follow.
Video footage of the Bowling Green Massacre… pic.twitter.com/Lrm693FwP0
— TrumpsTaxes (@TrumpsTaxes) February 3, 2017
These are trying times but it’s important that we never forget the legacy left behind by the Bowling Green Massacre.