By Bennet Hayes
Odell Beckham Jr. wasnt the nFL’s only Break-out star in 2014: at lease knot on the twitter’s world.
As you just saw in the headline and first paragrah, grammatical and spelling errors can make for a choppy read. But in the case of one NFL satirist, there is plenty of material worth reading hiding behind the dropped commas and uncapitalized proper nouns.
The witty, occasionally irreverent and ALWAYS misspelled satire of PFT Commenter (@PFTCommenter) earned him more followers with every passing Sunday last fall. The identity of the man behind the Twitter handle remains a mystery, but for many fans, the SB Nation guest contributor has become a trusted voice on everything NFL.
My sources are telling me Edelmen (gave 110%) is getting a dirt IV and is probable 2 return
— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) January 19, 2015
Born out of the comments section of Profootballtalk.com in late 2012, PFT Commenter’s parody act plays upon the sensationalized, bigoted commentary that consumes much of the NFL discussion on the Internet. Favorite targets of PFT’s satire include many chosen scapegoats (fairly or unfairly) of the average NFL fan: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III and ESPN’s Darren Rovell, among others.
.@PFTCommenter's central argument for this week's MMBM is simple.http://t.co/ry9E5dqDUt pic.twitter.com/ExljQdWb8W
— SB Nation (@SBNation) February 16, 2015
Ryan Nanni, SB nation contributor and himself the owner of one of the 140 best Twitter feeds of 2014 (according to Time), said he thinks one of the reasons PFT Commenter has become so popular is the consistency of his act.
“He is unwaveringly committed to the bit,” Nanni said. “There are any number of people who try to do a parody account or performance account or whatever you want to call it and they break at some point…but he has stuck it out the whole time.
“It’s the ability to take everything to the next level, but also present it as an argument that you really fervently believe in that I think is the quiet genius of it.”
Going to deflate my neighbors tire's a few psi tomorow morning and I bet he makes it 2work just fine.ironically this whole things overblown
— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) January 21, 2015
Medill Reports interviewed PFT Commenter – via email, at his insistence – on what life is like for the NFL’s most popular anonymous pundit.
Just a quick reminder: As the editorial note on his weekly SB Nation column reads: “PFT Commenter’s strong takes are presented as parody…All spelling errors are intentional, we think.”
Where and when did you begin crafting your takes on the NFL?
Like most popular writers I got started in the comment sectons of sports websites. Obviously ProFootballTalk was a big one for me but I was also known to frequent yahoo sports and yahoo answers just having some fun. Comment’s are a great way to perfect your takes because there usually not very long and you have to deliver the goods succinctly or risk losing your audence. Correct grammer, punctuation isnt important in todays society anymore, in fact most major newspapers have been doing away with there fact-checker and editor positions recently because theyve come to realize that telling is much more important then spelling. If I read a article where every word is spelled perfectly correctly then I’m going to assume the column was put together like you would assemble a delicate dollhouse spending more time worrying about crafting tenses then getting to the damn point without caring who you offend. I want my columns to be thrown together like a damn brick wall with plastic explosives as the adhesive- put the IED back in “editorial.”
What did you learn by being at Super Bowl media day this year?
I learned that the NFL media is just as professonal, courteous, and genuine as you thought. I also learned that Pete Carrol is scared to asnwer questions about being a part of the 9/11 truth movement and that Marshawn Lynch is a clown because he woudnt asnwer questions from a guy wearing literally a barrell.
While the bulk of your takes pertain to the NFL, I’ve seen some columns from you on other topics. Are you planning on bringing your commentary more and more into non-NFL spheres?
Yes thats correct. Im trying to branch out a bit. Allthough I will always examine any topic through the lens of a dieheart NFL fan, I will be bringing my takes to non-football related spheres of influence. The internet has been longing for more straight white male opinions when it comes to topics like politics, television, hockey, and finance and Im just glad to help speak for those of us who untill only the last couple thousand years, never really had much of a voice.
