PACKLASH: People On Twitter Really, Really, Really Hate Roger Goodell

Written by Ashley Burns / 09.25.12

You’ve seen the video by now. I won’t pretend that there’s anyone out there who hasn’t. Green Bay Packers defensive back M.D. “20/20” Jennings clearly intercepted Russell Wilson’s hail mary pass as the clock expired in last night’s Monday Night Football game against the Seattle Seahawks. Even my brother, a diehard Seahawks fan, texted me as the world was going nuts that the league’s replacement refs should be fired. It was amazing, to say the least, and I can’t even imagine how I’d react if I were a Packers fan.

I think Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy summed it all up quite nicely.

“It was awful. Just look at the replay. And then the fact that it was reviewed, it was awful,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers succinctly summed it up. “That’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Packers coach Mike McCarthy was equally concise. “Don’t ask me a question about the officials,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that in all my years in football.

That said, Ape already did a great job in capturing some of the reactions from last night, and the USA Today has a fun rundown (a fundown!) of random sports figures’ reactions. I poured myself a hot cup o’ java this morning and settled into Twitter to see what I missed after my feed was clogged faster than Kirstie Alley’s toilets on Taco Tuesday last night. The vitriol – if that’s even a strong enough word – for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Twitter is hilariously outrageous.

There were death threats, calls for suicide, and some of the most vulgar invitations for self pleasure that I’ve ever read. Unfortunately, I try to keep these here pages as clean as possible, so I ignored those. Well, most of them. After the jump, I’ve included this morning’s wet spot of PACKLASH.

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Nike’s Marketing > The Entire World’s Outrage

Written by Ashley Burns / 09.04.12

During the 2012 Summer Olympics, it was reported that security at the London venues was instructed to crack down on any people who tried to attend events while wearing recognizable logos of companies that weren’t exclusive sponsors. That was a very nice way of saying that McDonald’s owned the fry monopoly and Coke wanted to kick out anyone wearing Pepsi logos, which would have sucked for me because my whole wardrobe is nothing but Mountain Dew shirts.

This was a little unfair to the average Joe, Boris or Ming cheering on their countries, because as some surveys showed, nobody knew which companies were even sponsoring the Olympics. In fact, 37% of the 1,034 people who took part in an online survey believed that Nike was a sponsor, when it fact it wasn’t – Nike does, however, sponsor Team USA and other countries so it didn’t matter – and this just basically proved what we already knew – Nike is really awesome at marketing.

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Is This Nike ‘Gold Digging’ Shirt In Bad Taste?

Written by Ashley Burns / 08.16.12

Now that we’re in the summer’s sports lull – albeit a shortened lull, thanks to the Summer Olympics – people need to find whatever they can to complain about. For instance, I just started work on my first book, “Call Me Tired: One Man’s Plea To End Carly Rae Jepsen Parodies”, due out in paperback by September 2019. But it appears that the rest of the Internet is focusing its rage on Nike for the above t-shirt that it released for women, as a way to celebrate how awesome America’s female athletes were at the Olympics.

In case you missed the emasculating statistic, American women accounted for 58 of the country’s 104 overall medals and 29 of the 46 overall gold medals. Hence, gold digging. However, thanks to our society’s warming embrace of old, wealthy men marrying young, attractive women, this shirt is apparently a negative thing. Gee, I hope ABC News’ source of anger is well-qualified…

“Sort of undermines the strong woman image Nike has spent $$ to market,” said one Twitter user.

Coming tomorrow: My YouTube commenter breakdown of Nike’s “Gold Digging” commercial. (I really wish that existed.)

“Whoever thought a Nike t’shirt emblazoned with ‘GOLD DIGGING’ was a fitting tribute to female Olympians shuld be fired,” said another.

Why? Are all of the U.S. women’s athletes sleeping with billionaires and going on lavish shopping sprees before re-boarding their private helicopters and flying back to their yachts in St. Tropez? Because if they’re not, I think it’s a pretty clever play on words. But what the hell do I know?

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This Week In YouTube Commenter Outrage: Ragu’s Hilarious Olympic Ad

Written by Ashley Burns / 08.06.12

Despite the love affair with hating NBC for its delayed coverage and contempt for its stupid viewers, the 2012 Summer Olympics have had some amazing moments. Obviously, Gabby Douglas, Michael Phelps, Oscar Pistorious, Missy Franklin, and many others have had remarkable performances, and of course there were the pooping divers and Retta’s awesome Twitter analysis. But generating some serious buzz over the weekend was a commercial for Ragu that has absolutely nothing to do with the Summer Games, other than it aired during NBC’s coverage.

In the commercial, a young boy has a book or something that he wants to share with his parents, so he just barges into their bedroom and catches them having sex. So does he fall into a black hole of trauma and psychotic outrage that will scar him for the rest of his life? No way, Jose. His parents make it up to him with a big, heaping plate of Ragu spaghetti. I’ve been told that pasta sauce is just as effective as heroin in hiding decades of mental anguish.

Ultimately, the commercial (after the jump) is quite funny, the kind of outlandish spot you’d expect during the Super Bowl. So this begs the important question – what do the oracles of YouTube commenting have to say about it? Is it great? The greatest? Better than Nike’s “Find Your Greatness”? Or is it the worst thing that has ever been aired on TV? Let’s explore.

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