In a day and age where NBA Centel is one of the most recognized and celebrated accounts in all of sports media, sports fans are bound to fall victim to the occasional post made by a trickster. Such was the case for several unfortunate fans who were duped by one prankster’s attempts at spreading his fair share of J.J. McCarthy propaganda.
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To no one’s surprise the original claim comes from a Minnesota Vikings fan page on X. After a series of posts containing faux OTA stats, ones that mimicked someone who was providing coverage on McCarthy’s development, they reported that the Michigan quarterback had “officially” broken Tom Brady’s nonexistent record for most touchdown passes in OTA history.
“He throws his 36th Touchdown Pass, surpassing Tom Brady for the all-time OTA record,” the post read.
The prank itself is lighthearted enough not to warrant any major reactions, but it is a testament to how generating attention on social media has evolved in recent years. Accounts such as these aren’t above spreading little white lies to help generate engagement, putting the onus on fans and journalists to double-check their sources and verify the facts before spreading the word.
Seeing as OTAs aren’t completely available to the public 100% of the time, any sort of attempt at stat tracking those practices would prove to be foolhardy at best. In an attempt to clear things up a bit, the host of the Purple FTW! Podcast explained how these kinds of pranks tend to take on a life of their own online.
In light of the Sporting News having seemingly fallen for the fake report, the Minnesota commentator suggested that:
“A lot of aggregation just is “sources say” and then quoting another aggregator. And then their sources say quoting another aggregator, and it turns into a game of telephone… They are in the aggregation game just like everyone else trying to get clicks.”
The implications that come with such false reports are much more concerning. According to the Vikings’ analyst, while it is somewhat hilarious to see a member of the legacy media fall for what should have been a rather obvious bit of satire, it is also “ludicrous.”
“There is a certain percentage of the population that will take this to heart and think that, for the rest of their lives, yes, J.J. McCarthy is out there breaking Tom Brady’s records. That’s why, on one hand, yes, this is funny. But, on the other hand, this is pretty dangerous. We’re walking a fine line. Of course, it’s very low stakes when it comes to sports… But it’s the symptom of a much larger illness. This extrapolates beyond sports and into news, into politics, into everything.”
“Misinformation” and “disinformation” may have become the latest series of political buzzwords to poke fun at, but they are still very much real.
While it’s certainly not as far-fetched or as malicious as the false reporting that is often seen in the world of politics, the antics of this Vikings fan page only further the notion that no one individual is truly immune to consuming and spreading outright lies.
