It all started with a Mean Girls reference.
At about 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Twitter feed retweeted a meme from their playing grounds, Raymond James Stadium, and called the meme "fetch," a reference to a failed slang attempted by Lacey Chabert in the (great) 2004 flick Mean Girls.
The Bucs quite obviously left themselves open with this one, and social media managers from around the division quickly proved they didn't have much to do on a Wednesday, as the thread escalated into a GIF war between the Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers.
I obviously don't have enough to do either on this Wednesday afternoon, as I will lead you through a review of the GIF war that – spoiler alert – never really went anywhere.
The Falcons were the first to take the bait with a Rachel McAdams meme calling out the Bucs for trying to make "fetch" happen.
.@TBBuccaneers pic.twitter.com/quWAyRRJiX
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) June 17, 2015This is all fun and great. For innocent minds who like to think they're reading the message of some badass football players who are known for knocking the sh*t out of each other as opposed to some 20-something girl with a PR degree and a fresh memory of Mean Girls, it could be fun to think of them tweeting back and forth about a Lindsay Lohan vehicle. The Bucs were then quick to come back with a meme of Tina Fey from the same movie.
.@AtlantaFalcons pic.twitter.com/IO5UQAzB3A
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@TBBuccaneers) June 17, 2015We're now in moving picture territory, and the addition of Tina Fey into any GIF or meme war is hard to build on. It's really only downhill from here. The Falcons try to come back with a Ace Ventura: Pet Detective meme that shows they have some sort of range into the history of comedy movies, if a 21-year-old movie counts as historical range.
.@TBBuccaneers pic.twitter.com/jxZHTq83VC
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) June 17, 2015I like that there is still some trash talking going on here. They're basically saying, "We just trolled you, you responded, that means we win." They threw shade and now they're throwing on the shades. The Bucs, yet again, show no originality by simply copying the movie Atlanta just referenced.
.@AtlantaFalcons LIVE from Flowery Branch @Panthers @Saints pic.twitter.com/y6qWsTvZRH
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@TBBuccaneers) June 17, 2015The Flowery Branch reference is to the small Georgia town in which the Falcons hold training camp, which seems to say they have a few more problems on the team than keeping the laces out. The Falcons respond with their own live video from training camp.
.@TBBuccaneers @Panthers @Saints Also live from Flowery Branch... pic.twitter.com/ssRZ4vjyxZ
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) June 17, 2015I'm not going to lie, I laughed at that. I'm not even sure why, but I'm pretty sure it was the point during which I decided I would write a blog post about this tomfoolery between the Panthers' rivals. The Bucs response:
@AtlantaFalcons @Panthers @Saints pic.twitter.com/D2H2JfViWq
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@TBBuccaneers) June 17, 2015Ok, maybe it didn't make sense, but Anchorman GIFS, like Anchorman jokes and Anchorman everything else, are played out and have run their course.
@TBBuccaneers @AtlantaFalcons @Panthers It's been fun. Heading to practice. Leave you with Tommy! pic.twitter.com/JQasFokEXJ
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) June 17, 2015This is when everything falls apart. What the hell is going on here? If you didn't notice, that's the damn New Orleans Saints coming in from nowhere and putting up some GIF that makes no sense about babysitting Tommy from Rugrats?
@Saints @TBBuccaneers @Panthers Us, too. See you guys this fall. pic.twitter.com/zr8hzTKnpH
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) June 17, 2015Ok, mic drop from the Falcons, this thing seems to be over, right?
.@AtlantaFalcons @Saints @Panthers We'll see you this fall... pic.twitter.com/fpJDQoj2b2
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@TBBuccaneers) June 17, 2015The Bucs have had their fun too. Let's go back to practice (or pretending the social media managers have real jobs).
@TBBuccaneers @AtlantaFalcons @Saints Get back to work guys. pic.twitter.com/gSjogCbSD1
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) June 17, 2015WHAT?!?!? Why, Panthers? I love you and all, but why? Posting a random video that happened to go viral years ago with a Panthers jersey involved just because? You've got to get a new GIF.
@Panthers @TBBuccaneers @AtlantaFalcons @Saints we see your piano-playing cat, and raise you @RaysDJKitty. pic.twitter.com/Hf6xc5nZaK
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) June 17, 2015That's a baseball team. This is just great. It has turned into the perfect metaphor for an actual argument that happens on Twitter and why it isn't actually a dialogue. Who asked the Rays to take take part in this and why are we now sharing cat videos?
@RaysBaseball @RaysDJKitty The only logical thing to do here is start a cat band. 😺🐱🎶🎵
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) June 17, 2015Alright, I'm done. I have nothing left to say about this.
