To all teenagers out there, I've never met a person who was successful or felt a sense of accomplishment by staring at their phone all day.
— Sage Rosenfels (@SageRosenfels18) July 24, 2016
Former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels decided to send out the above tweet on Sunday afternoon, calling out “teenagers” for staring at their phones too much and telling them they that he’s “never met a person who was successful or felt a sense of accomplishment by staring at their phones all day.”
Oh boy, there’s a lot to unpack there. That is a classic Gen X attitude when it comes to cell phone use, and not too unexpected for a man of Rosenfels’ age.
For starters, just because you, Sage Rosenfels, have never met someone who has felt that way, does not mean those people do not exist. Furthermore, there are hundreds if not thousands of jobs that literally require you to be on a phone all day, and I’m sure many of those people feel quite accomplished. Finally, if you’re going to call out cell phone use in your bad tweet, you probably shouldn’t have your Snapchat handle in your Twitter bio. How did you send that tweet out anyways Sage? Hmm.
There are many bad takes like this on Twitter on a daily basis that float out into the abyss without so much as a second thought. The issue is, Rosenfels is a former pro athlete, and he has to know that once he puts his misinformed thoughts out to the world, it’s going to be picked up on. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take much time for the responses to start coming in.
if I wasn't staring at my phone I would have never seen this.
— Garlan (@garlan010) July 24, 2016
https://twitter.com/PantsFreeZone/status/757305617824395264
https://twitter.com/Vat_J/status/757306227437154305
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/757307938499391489
Get those Teens, Sage! https://t.co/WzJbeljzyR
— Patrick Claybon (@PatrickClaybon) July 24, 2016
i made a career out of it https://t.co/PWfQiGdaGL
— Lana Berry (@Lana) July 24, 2016
https://twitter.com/ohholybutt/status/757306793362018304
https://twitter.com/coleymick/status/757306552520876032
Your name is Sage https://t.co/XNDIxtVLzd
— alex (@vodkalemonades) July 24, 2016
https://twitter.com/JasonKirkSBN/status/757308039359635456
https://twitter.com/crisbruyere/status/757308037715546116
says man staring at his phone while he makes tweet
— stan (@kerlickTexas) July 24, 2016
https://twitter.com/_JordanLebeau/status/757306989739438080
The lesson here as always, is to never tweet.