If you listened to last week’s sneak preview for Season Three of the Handsome Hour Boiled Sports Podcast, you might have heard my colleague boilerdowd comment on how – at the moment – he wasn’t feeling the usual amount of dislike for Notre Dame. He’d been watching some of their practices and had honestly felt it looked “fun.” Couple that with new coach Brian Kelly who, unlike Charlie Weis, is not as easily detestable (not yet, anyway). Weis embodied typical golden domers – irrationally and unjustifiably arrogant and simultaneously ignorant regarding how far off the map of relevance their program has fallen.
Well, if you felt as dowdy did and you were having any trouble ramping up your level of hate for ND, let me regale you with a little story.
We got an email over the weekend to the Boiled Sports mailbox from a proprietor of a new Notre Dame themed site who “would love if [we] would direct [our] readers” to them. Yes, I’m sure you would love free traffic.
He then went on to say that their site was for ND lovers AND haters and that their first post was up and it was why don’t Notre Dame fans care about Purdue. He provided no link.
I replied and said that with no link it was hard to read the story and, secondly, that Domers spend a lot of time explaining why they don’t care about Purdue.
He snottily replied that if I READ the article, I’d see that he explained that they actually should. And he provided the link.
I read the drivel against my better judgment (seriously, why should I give any attention to a one-post blog?) and noted that just seven sentences in to their blog’s existence, they took a shot at Hammer & Rails, suggesting that no Domer would ever comment on a Purdue site and that to think so would be “flattering” oneself. His two commenters were the typical douches we’ve come to expect of ND fans, making the tired old “It’s just Purdue” argument.
I replied and said the following:
Did you seriously take a shot at Hammer & Rails in your inaugural post? You doubt a single ND fan has ever commented on their site, eh? Done a lot of research to back that up, have you?
Ah, I forgot. Domers never let the facts get in the way. Pesky facts!
That sort of arrogance (and that of every other UND "fan," such as your two commenters) is precisely why we hate Notre Dame. Misplaced, ignorant, unjustified arrogance.
He didn’t like that and suggested I’d been “unnerved.” I pointed out that he wanted haters and we, in no uncertain terms, hate Notre Dame. He immediately backpedaled that his barb at H&R was “sarcastic” and I was dumb to not understand that. He also offered his “thesis,” which I’m sure you’ll agree, is SO FRICKING ORIGINAL I AM BLOWN AWAY:
And my true thesis why many Purdue fans hate ND is because ND fans overall just don't care about Purdue, despite the many good reasons to do so as I posted in my post. It's just a "meh" game for many of us. Hard to get excited about.
Now THAT, my friends, is a quality “thesis.” In fact, that would probably be a good thesis for a PhD at Notre Dame. Why? Because it’s BRILLIANT! And nobody has ever made that stupid, tired, nonsensical, egocentric suggestion before. Yes, sir, we dislike Notre Dame because THEY don’t care enough about us. CARE ABOUT US, DAMMIT! We demand to be CARED ABOUT! Take us seriously! We demand validation from a program that hasn’t had an over .500 season in three years! A program that….USED to be really good! Like, 40 years ago! Dammit, VINDICATE US FROM THIS CESSPOOL OF UNCARINGNESS!! PLEASE!
Sorry, I blacked out for a minute there...
Okay, what I actually did was point out that he just encapsulated what we hate about ND. That they’re so blinded by their world-revolves-around-an-irrelevant-program thinking that the only logical reason we might dislike them is because they don’t pay enough attention to us. I told him he’s just like every other ND fan and that it’s not surprising at all.
I also pointed out that he contacted US hoping for free site traffic and in his inaugural post bashes a Purdue site that is well-written, well-researched and beyond handsome. And a level of dedication and hard work he has no concept of yet. His site will – guaranteed – be abandoned shortly. I’m betting less than halfway through this season. And yet this arrogant douchewad CONTINUED to be pissy with me – because writing ONE post as a Domer qualifies you to lecture guys who’ve been doing this for years and have written, literally, THOUSANDS of posts.
I told him he oughta toughen up if he’s going to write a blog. I also told him to shoo.
As you’ve likely gathered by now, I’m not linking to this Notre Dame sycophant who claims to want ND haters as well. I do like his business model, though. On his site he has this:
In addition to your comments on our posts, we want to hear your stories and see your pictures! Maybe you’re a fan living in enemy territory or maybe you hated Notre Dame growing up. Or perhaps you had a great gameday experience or maybe you have a room at your home dedicated to Notre Dame.
Here's how I believe the conversation went...
ND ignoramus #1: “I have a brilliant idea! Let’s start a ND website! We’ll pretend we want people who like ND as well as hate ND!”
ND ignoramus #2: “But don’t haters already go to sites of teams they hate?”
ND ignoramus #1: “You don’t get it! We’ll welcome them! And we’ll ask other sites to send their traffic to us. Then we’ll take that traffic and tell them to send us pictures, stories, etc. They’ll be writing the site for us! It’s brilliant!”
ND ignoramus #2: *Shrugs, hangs up IU basketball jacket and puts on ND football jacket* “Sounds good to me, boss.”
I hate these people. I really do. Bring on the season.