Eagles

Our Facebook Commenters are Idiots

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 20th, 2023 · 4:14 PM EST

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We did a satirical post the other day where Pagan and I put together all-black vs. all-white Pro Bowl rosters. I’m happy to report that it’s the third-most read story on the site this week. Some guy even emailed me saying that our coaching choices “sucked” and then explained why Joe Montana should replace Tom Brady on the all-white team.

He got the joke, but most of our Facebook commenters did not.

Case in point, a sampling of the replies:

Now, all you would have had to do is read the first sentence of the story to realize it was a spoof of a ridiculous Rashard Mendenhall tweet, which was then spun into a light-hearted exercise. Who plays cornerback for the all-white team? Jason Sehorn and an out-of-position Eric Weddle, that’s who! You have a laugh but maybe challenge your brain at the same time by trying to pick between Ed Reed and Brian Dawkins, because Ronnie Lott has to be safety #1 on the all-time, all-black team.

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but after 17 years of journalism, my estimation is that less than 10% of the people who comment on Facebook actually read the story, and even 10% feels generous. That goes for sports, news, entertainment, anything really. They look at the headline and immediately begin typing their comment. Then, when other commenters call them out on this, they get defensive and claim we wrote a “misleading” or “clickbait” headline, when in truth the CB headlines are usually 10-14 words and the stories themselves are anywhere between 250 and 1,000 words. So in a story that is 700 words, for example, the headline would comprise 0.0196% of what’s written in totality.

There’s no good solution to this. You can’t make people read a story. It’s like leading the horse to the water, but then the horse has to actually drink, and Facebook may as well be the Gobi Desert of fresh water. So you try to write interesting teases without being clickbait, and there actually is a difference. Clickbait is when you write something like, “Eagles Cornerback Injured One Day Before Dallas Game.” Then you click on it and it turns out Mekhi Garner was listed as probable with a hangnail. That’s clickbait. It’s useless shit. A headline like “We Put Together All-Black vs. All-White Pro Bowl Rosters for Rashard Mendenhall,” is not clickbait. That’s just a good tease with a humorous slant.

People take themselves way too seriously anyway. Need to grow some thicker skin. If you watched the Dave Chappelle “racial draft” skit and became offended, congrats, you’re a loser. And as a reminder, this is an irreverent sports blog and not The New York Times. (see our FAQ for more fun tidbits!)

I’m sick of average white guys commenting on football. Y’all not even good at football. Can we please replace the Pro Bowl with an All-Black vs. All-White bowl so these cats can stop trying to teach me who’s good at football. I’m better than ur goat.

— Rashard Mendenhall (@R_Mendenhall) December 18, 2023