Rumor milled

Look, we all know what social media is. It's that nice thing we can't have because some thoughtless gomer tracked mud all over it, or smeared it with his or her greasy fingerprints, or used it as as a shop rag to wipe 10W30 off his/her hands.

"But that was my favorite Whitesnake tee!" you cry.

 "So?" the gomers reply.

This is kind of what they're saying to Mary Kate Cornett right now.

If you don't know her name, it's because there's no reason you should, but of course that's not the way the social media hellsphere works. People do know her name now, and it's all because the gomers decided her life was their business. They decided to wipe their hands on it, and now she's that ruined Whitesnake tee and wants to know what she did to deserve this.

The answer, of course, is nothing.

The answer is Mary Kate Cornett was just an 18-year-old freshman at Ole Miss until she started dating a certain BMOC, and a handful of troglodytes started spreading vile, baseless rumors (i.e.: blatant lies) about her. That's just what some people do, and, no, I don't know why. Because the world is over-served with  asshats, I suppose.

I mean, just look at the collection of insufferable clods running the show in Washington these days. Talk about Asshat Central.

Anyway, the rumors/lies would have been bad enough for Ms. Cornett had they just been confined to campus. But then the social media gomers got hold of them, and, being the Junior Fire Marshal journos they imagine themselves to be ("We got badges and everything!"), decided a college freshman's private life was Big Honkin' News.

So here was Pat McAfee of ESPN, a gomer first-class, yapping about it on his widely listened to/watched show. And two guys from Barstool Sports, that bastion of oafish seventh-grade-boy misogyny. And an ESPN St. Louis radio host. And former NFL wide receiver/certified loon Antonio Brown, another gomer first-class.

The Barstool Sports guys were a couple of yapping poodles who go by the online handles Jack Mac and KFC. The St. Louis poodle was Doug Vaughn. Just to get their names out there.

Thanks to them, but mostly thanks to McAfee, Mary Kate Cornett has been thoroughly rumor milled, with predictable results. Asshat America, remember? 

And so she started getting mail calling her a slut and a whore, surprise, surprise. Was moved into emergency housing and switched to online classes because of the harassment.  Her family's home was even "swatted" -- i.e., someone called in a false report that brought the police SWAT unit to their door.

All because McAfee and the rest of the gomers thought her business was their business.

Now Cornett and her family are thinking about dropping a lawsuit on McAfee's head, and by proxy on ESPN's. In a fair world they'd win and lighten a few wallets, but, again, it's not a fair world. That's because the phrase "social media" includes the word "media."

One of the most nefarious things the gomers have done, see, is blur the line between what is mere entertainment, and what is the legitimate gathering of news. The gomers tap-dance on either side of that line, and they're pretty slick about it -- slick enough that they can defend themselves by claiming any salacious rumors they were amplifying were legitimate news because of Mary Kate Cornett's connection to a legitimate news personage, and how about that First Amendment, boys and girls?

You see the problem here. They're not really media in the traditional sense, all these yapping poodles, but in 2025 the traditional sense no longer applies. If the Pat McAfees cannot in any way be regarded as newsmen, the blurring of that aforementioned line allows them to operate within the newsman's framework.

No matter how poorly the newsman's hat fits them. And with what reckless disregard they wear it.