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I Think the Celtics’ X Account May Be Run By a 54-Year-Old Man Using ChatGPT to Sound 25
By Matt Schultz
Published:
With the Sixers and Celtics tipping off for Game 3 Friday night at 7 p.m., I have spent my morning seeking out and devouring all the content there is. I am a truffle hog for the content. I root through the slop looking for gold. I’m down in the mud every single day, pawing and digging and sniffing out the best social media tidbits there are, faithfully following my nose wherever it may lead – and today, it led me to the official Celtics X account.
This account rules. Not because it offers any cool insights or anything – just the opposite. I suspect this account may be run by a man nearing his 60s, who would very much like to sound like a person in their 20s, and is asking ChatGPT for help to achieve this. And I love it very much.
This was the tweet that got me started on my theory:
“This photo goes hard” with the mad emoji is so awesome. What makes you say that, Celtics account? Is it the fire in the background that has you excited? Or the two guys jumping in the air and touching backs? Is it the spotlight on their backside-touch? It’s not that it’s a bad picture; it’s okay. Everything in the image is kind of far away – you gotta zoom in a little too much for my taste to really see anything, but overall, the picture is fine. The problem is, “This photo goes hard [mad emoji]” doesn’t really match what I’m seeing. A caption like “ftw the fellas graze cabooses in the air [prayer hands emoji]” would’ve made more sense. Or maybe the fire emoji instead, to elicit the idea of fire (in the background). Anyway, I love it. Let’s move to the next one:
Do Celtics fans call Payton Pritchard “Playground P?” I really hope they didn’t before and this is brand new. I really hope the Celtics account just made it up for this tweet. I like the idea of this kindhearted 54-year-old guy doing his best to run this account opening ChatGPT and typing in: “nicknames for Payton Pritchard my nephews would think are cool.” I can picture him reading the list that ChatGPT spit out: “Double P… Pritch The Glitch… The 2009-style Buzzcut Assassin… none of these are quite right… They’re missing that special something…” Then everything changes. He stumbles upon a nickname at the bottom of the list: Playground P. “This is it… it’s perfect,” he mutters, smiling ear to ear. “Because Payton is joyful, like a child in a jungle gym. And thus, Playground P is born… Everyone will love this nickname… Yes…” 10/10 tweet. I love it.
This is the most ChatGPT one yet. No human could watch this clip and think, “Man, I gotta say: Jaylen Brown just left all five defenders in the dust. Much like a rocket ship, if you think about it.” That’s not what happened at all! Jaylen beat Paul George (old as hell, died on the screen) to the paint, then passed Andre Drummond (didn’t slide, simply didn’t feel like it, also old as hell) for an uncontested dunk – don’t drag the other three Sixers into this! They were not left in the dust! In fact, in my opinion, no one in this clip was “left in the dust.” This all happened at a moderate speed! “Left in the dust” should be reserved for like, Giannis Antetokounmpo end-to-end fast breaks only. I love this tweet. Good tweet.
Also hoping the rocket ship emoji is an intentional homage to this all-time great Celtics-adjacent tweet:
Anyway, I highly recommend heading over to the Celtics’ X account for more good stuff like this. I genuinely hope the person running the account is having a good day. Whoever you are, you brought me some real joy here. Thank you. [strong arm emoji]
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…)