LOL/WTF/SMH/FTW, Or: How I Learned To Hate Awful Journalism and Love the Sky-High Blood Pressure That Comes with Reading It

Quick: what's the worst thing to happen to Mizzou in 2012-13?

The tragic deaths of nine current students? Nope. The athletic department briefly coddling a suspected rapist, and large sections of the student body begging for his reinstatement to the basketball team? Of course not. That one football game against Alabama? Close, but no cigar. The totality of one Kalen Wagoner's sports columns? Maybe second-worst, but still not it.

No, according to my esteemed former employers at The Maneater, it was actually the ebonics and improper grammar displayed on the student body president's Twitter. (BEWARE: block of text ahead because the stupid website won't allow me to directly link to the upcoming section.)

MSA President Twitter was an embarrassment

If you scroll back through the @MSAPresident Twitter account, you’ll see tweets congratulating student organizations, announcing events and informing students about the Missouri Students Association. Or, at least you will until you scroll back past Dec. 14. Don’t let Nick Droege’s name and photo fool you — these are the tweets of our former MSA President Xavier Billingsley.

For an entire year, Billingsley shared his stream of consciousness to the student body, tweeting things like “My dad’s boots are awesome #southernproper” on Feb. 3 and “Yeah buddy rolling like a big shot” on July 1 and even “Ahhhhhhhh I’m so crunk right now #msaelections” on Nov. 7.

It's fun to relive Billingsley’s @MSAPresident Twitter feed: We celebrated the holidays with Billingsley, such as on May 5, “Philisophy is that wall blocking me from Cinco De Mayo and my sombrero.” He reminisced about his “ratchet days” on Sept. 11, cheered on Team USA in the Olympics on July 27 with “AYYYEYEEEEE #TeamUSA” and celebrated joining the SEC on July 1 with “Ya boy is getting emotional with it. #SEC14 #SoProud.”

Through all the misspelled, irrelevant and occasionally incoherent @MSAPresident tweets, Billingsley had us laughing.

But should we be laughing?

The MSA president before Billingsley, Eric Woods, called out Billingsley’s tweets saying, “Was that a sentence? Is that what they’re teaching you in your classes this semester?” to which Billingsley responded, “SHUT UP ERIC!”

These tweets would have been fine had Billingsley tweeted them from his personal account, @DJXJ – which he often invited “join the party and follow him at” – but they were from the MSA President account, which is read by prospective students, administrators and the entire student body.

More importantly, though, the MSA president is supposed to represent the student body through all his interactions, including Twitter.

Billingsley didn’t seem to think so. Instead, his Twitter feed was unprofessional and used for fun. Billingsley said he has the “best tweets west of the Mississippi.” – we’ll at least give you the most interesting, XJ.

(RELEVANT GIF.)

He said "ratchet." He told someone to "SHUT UP" in ALL CAPS! He had the nerve to USE HIS TWITTER ACCOUNT FOR FUN. Gosh, what's the proper punishment? I vote we force feed him pages from the AP Stylebook until his stomach bursts. That sounds about right.

If Billingsley's words kept some Yahweh-forsaken helicopter mommy in Ladue from sending little Billy to our big, bad SEC college town, then good. I'm sure he's enjoying SLU immensely. Better for him to mix with Jesuits than black frat guys who use words not approved by Webster's on a totally voluntary social networking account.

"But should we be laughing," you ask? Sure! Why the fuck not! If anything, applaud the man for his creativity. Anyone can tweet out links to press releases or inspirational YouTube videos. It takes a truly special man to pull off the use of #southernproper.

Were the tweets unexpected from such an exalted political figure? Sure. Were they in any way harmful? Nope. Sexist? Uh-uh. Racist? Not nearly as much as the editorial above. Funnier than the "approval matrix" shamelessly stolen from eminent journalistic outfit Buzzfeed that appeared in the same section? You betcha.

Lump The Maneater in with Slate, Salon, The Atlantic, etc: basically, every other awful "liberal" media outlet (that I happen to regularly consume). For fuck's sake, there are enough real crises already; no reason to get so sanctimonious over manufactured trauma. It's time to quit writing whiny, circlejerky editorials espousing the virtues of political correctness that themselves patronize certain racial or class demographics. Maybe then good, sensible 'Murricans could take the craft of journalism seriously again.

There Is Plenty To Be Worried About. There Is Nothing To Be Frightened Of.

Of all the thoughts that arise after events such as last Friday's shootings in Newtown, CT, I dwell on this the longest - there is nothing stopping this from happening to me and the ones I love.

We could get our brains blown out via semi-automatic assault rifle while searching for frozen pizza at Wal-Mart. We could never come back from that showing of The Hobbit if the local homicidal psychopath happened to pick the same theater. Whenever some shitty lecture in class makes you put finger guns to your head, realize that someone may be lurking just beyond the door, all too eager to fulfill your wish.

It is a selfish line of thinking, to be sure, but that makes it no less true. And besides, it is the only way I can begin to fathom what happened in Newtown - to know that it could happen in Columbia or Champaign or Highland too. 

I had the nightmare last night. My policeman neighbor headed into the slaughterhouse of kindergartners to remove the slain. My parents' friends physically buried those same children, though they would never bury the day in their minds. My brother and sister came home without tears or words - only blank faces and shattered spirits. They were the lucky ones.

Chances are that day will never come. (There is a good reason most dreams do not come true.) Despite all the violence we hear of - and it is too much - human beings are remarkably kind to their kin. The human spirit is still alive, and thank God, for it is all that prevents us from living our public lives with the sort of blatant paranoia displayed in the words above. Yes, there is plenty to be worried about - but nothing to be frightened of.

In the next few days the nation will get over the shock of Newtown (if only because the 24- hour MSNBCNN tragedy cycle has to find something else to fixate on). The faith in humanity that allows us to live in a free society will return and the paralyzing fear will disappear. 

It is this fear we must not succumb to at any cost, for it keeps us from appreciating all we do have. We have a political system that, while completely fucked, still upholds our freedoms, facilitates peaceful changes of power and places great faith in its citizens. Step up and reaffirm that faith. We live in a nation where the individual can still improve his lot in life and make the change he wishes to see in the world. Go out and be that change. And we have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters and aunts and uncles and old people and babies and BFFs and casual acquaintances, people that make life worth living. Hug the shit out of them while you can.

Hide Your Tebowners: A Few Thoughts on a Relatively Anonymous Quarterback

Last semester, for a variety of unimportant reasons to be examined never, I took a religion class, and got damn did I dread it. As an atheist, I figured it would be me and a couple hundred Bible thumpers of all different varieties. There would be a few C.S. Lewis-reading hipsters, and some more gun-toting flag-waving hicks, and even more average people who claim their Christian faith but do little in their lives to demonstrate it. There's nothing wrong with any of these (admittedly short-sighted) stereotypes; everyone has their own ways when dealing with higher powers, as well they should. It's just not the way I roll. I figured I'd just sit in a corner and keep my mouth shut, and at least enjoy the comedy provided by the inevitable bastardization of Jesus' actions and words into justification for bigotry and intolerance.

Of course, then, it became my favorite class, but not for the reasons I thought. The whole thing turned out to be genuinely enjoyable. Sure, there were some comments and viewpoints shared that I wouldn't agree with, but there were no examples of cray-cray zealotry. Disagreement and debate were always polite. The class centered around Christianity (of course), but nobody complained when it turned to Buddhism and Islam. When a Wiccan guest lecturer spoke, nobody even asked if he was a witch (or threatened to burn him at the stake!). People just didn't say stupid shit, and that surprised me in the best way possible.

Then we talked about Tim Tebow.

***

The genius of Tebow, and more specifically the marketing campaign that surrounds him, is that his name comes up in places and discussions it should never appear in. Athletes that get the type of incessant coverage in and out of the sporting world that Tebow has usually meet two criteria: 1) they must kill some dogs and/or rape some women (or perhaps commit the equally heinous crime of divorcing a Kardashian!), and 2) they must be good enough at their sporting day job for us to give a shit. Tebow doesn't come close to meeting either of these requirements. All he had to do was kneel.

To say that any NFL quarterback is a significant figure in modern religion is blasphemy. To give that honor to a man at the helm of the league's second-worst passing offense only heightens the sin. Yet there we were, sitting in 313 Strickland, capitulating to the ESPN-manufactured narrative of Tebow as a Figure of Significance, making him matter way more than he should.

Football, like any other sport, is great because no matter what level it's played on, in the end it's just a game. It's a diversion from the heavier issues that legitimately plague our lives and our culture and out Earth. Any individual outcome doesn't effect the course of our lives or of American history or of the universe. Despite the outsize attention and love we show for football- and this blog is one of the worst offenders- in the end, none of it matters.

The natural human impulse of finding meaning in meaninglessness has to work its way into everything, though, and that impulse has settled its focus upon the quarterback of the now 9-9 Denver Broncos. I don't know if he believes his Lord & Savior Jesus Christ actively intervenes to help him win football games. If God does exist, I hope he would help the billions of people that can't find or afford food and shelter before a millionaire quarterback that can't throw a spiral. I don't think divine intervention is the secret to Tebow's success. I sure hope it isn't.

***

Our religion class spent a good twenty minutes discussing Tim Tebow a week or so after his frantic late touchdown scramble to beat the Jets launched Tebowmania in earnest. A few people praised his willingness to expose his beliefs to such ridicule (upon which you wonder how much hatred people could really have for the player that sells more jerseys than any other in the NFL). Another girl loudly defended his right to speak his mind and wondered what exactly the haters were trying to achieve.

It was then I decided, in a last-ditch effort to restore sanity, I had to break my vow of silence and talk for the first time in the semester. Wasn't a big indignant speech or anything; I just pointed out how popular he actually is and how the underdog role he's fashioned is pretty much bullshit (after all, what bigger advantage can one have in life than God's hand actively intervening on their behalf?), and that I support people who are good at what they do*. What's so special about a guy who gets paid to play quarterback but can't even throw a spiral?

And then I waited for the backlash that didn't come.

There would be one more comment. This girl grew up in Serbia and still has quite a heavy accent, yet in her words she exhibited the greatest understanding of football and culture and religion and America I have ever seen.

"Yeah, I just don't understand what the big deal is. I mean, like he said, if Tebow's a shitty player that doesn't even matter, why should we care about him?"

Nobody had an answer for her question.