Crappy Valley

It's been a decent stretch now since someone said social media was a force for good in the world, and by "stretch" I mean "since Al Gore invented the internet." Or, to put it another way, "never."

No, sir. Social media these days seems mainly the province of kooks, sundowning presidents and 30-year-olds who live in their parents' basements and spend all day retweeting bizarre conspiracy theories they hear on Fox News or from Devin Nunes.

Not sure where certain "fans" of Penn State football fall on that spectrum. I lean toward the latter, although I'd replace "bizarre conspiracy theories" with "death threats aimed at college students."

The college student in question here is named Sean Clifford, and he's the quarterback for the Penn State Nittany Lions. The Nittany Lions are 9-1 and ranked No. 8 headed into their big showdown with Ohio State this weekend. You'd think folks in Happy Valley wouldn't be at all crappy about that, but there's never been any accounting for the delusion of certain fan bases.

And so after Penn State's one loss this season to a very good Minnesota team, Sean Clifford was bombarded with nasty messages  -- including, yes, death threats. It got so bad, he told reporters this week, he deleted his social media accounts after the game.

"I usually delete it closer to games, but I completely deleted it after the Minnesota game," Clifford said. "It's kind of sad to say, but you know how fans sometimes get. ... It gets a little crazy. I was kind of, I guess, sick and tired of getting death threats and some pretty explicit and pretty tough-to-read messages."

Know what's even sadder?

That some people will read that quote and think the kid's a big wuss.

"Pretty tough-to-read messages"? Come on, son.  Man up. Sticks and stones, and all that.

That sort of thing.

Of course, many more people, being in their right minds, would be appalled that a young man was getting death threats and various other vulgarities over a football game. That sort of lunatic perspective has always been out there, but social media has made it free range.

Being an idiot with impunity has never been easier, and God bless the interwhatsis for that. It's the greatest facilitator of human crackpottery yet devised.

You'd hope either Clifford or Penn State coach James Franklin would have acknowledged this, but classiness got in the way. And so the most Clifford would say was "you know how fans sometimes get," while Franklin merely (and rather pointedly) thanked the program's positive fans and lamented the state of society these days as "concerning."

Just once, though, the Blob would love to read one of these stories and see Coach Slobberknocker saying this: "Let's face it, some of our fans are morons."

Just once. Please.