1. Back From the Dead
You’re not even five words into the latest episode of On Fire, and it already feels different. This is because your favorite On Fire correspondent has come out of a one-and-a-half to two-week retirement also known as a Taco Bell/Waffle House/McDonald’s/”Parks & Recreation” binge. Said correspondent is back though to re-establish this column as a top-10 column within a top-100 student publication.
2. Deadspin
This will most likely be an unpopular opinion amongst our massive readership, but we are kind of getting sick of Deadspin. Let us explain.
Deadspin’s main reader base is intensely casual sports fans. Intensely casual sports fans being fans who are really in your face about how intensely they follow sports but really watch no more than 50 percent of any given sports season. And it makes sense too. When you’re an intensely casual sports fan, a website like Deadspin is perfect. The site runs through every sporting event and every sports-related broadcast and takes out idiosyncracies that intense sports fans enjoy.
This helps intensely casual sports fans who don’t have lives/other things to worry about pick up on every minute detail he/she would have picked up without having to watch it.
Our problem with Deadspin right now is their insistence on mainstream-bashing to the point that they hate on every thing that they think might be even the least bit mainstream. They even tend to go and straight-up change their opinions when the opinions begin to be seen as “too mainstream.”
Two cases in point, Tim Tebow and Grantland. Deadspin was one of the first vocal Tim Tebow haters and did it early and often.
When Tebow was picked up by the Patriots and later released, Tebow-hating had hit its peak. Even mainstream publications like On Fire and ESPN jumped on board. This was just too much for Deadspin. Suddenly we see “a defense of Tim Tebow” and other such articles.
Do they have a point? Yes, Tebow bashing was getting out of control. But when you are the very publication that made Tebow bashing a “thing” and continued to bash on him. If Deadspin has slowly tapered off with its Tebow bashing, fine. But be less hypocritical plz. Thanks.
Grantland is less of a case in point because we haven’t really followed the whole Grantland bashing movement that they just started.
But for all the sharing of Grantland articles/opinions they do, their sudden decision that Grantland is responsible for the over-trivialization of sports is a tad annoying.
With all of this said though, Deadspin, if you’re reading this, please allow us to continue using your storylines for our On Fire columns. Not that we plagiarize or anything but sometimes we have it up as like a minimized tab or whatever.
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
