Tag: social media

I guess we know who’s vying to be the next Spirit

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Some friends and I were bullshitting on the topic of how Spirit Airlines is seemingly knocking at death’s door, about how if and when Spirit goes under, who takes their place in the airline pecking order, as the new budget airline that will absorb the lion’s share of ridicule and be the butt of all airline travel jokes?  Surely, one would emerge, seeing as how that’s just the natural order of nature, that if the weakest link of any category were to be cut off and killed, that someone would inevitably become the next in line.

The obvious choice would be Frontier, which is basically just Spirit Airlines but branded in green, as far as being a budget airline that lives on nickel and diming the fuck out of their customers, but for those who play it smart, a fairly serviceable option to get from point A to B.  And as someone who has flown both airlines on multiple occasions before, they really are pretty one and the same, and it would stand to believe that when Spirit goes under, those who already didn’t think Frontier was the ass-end of the airline industry, might not have any choice in the matter.

However, a surprising* contender appears to be emerging, as far as being a strong candidate to be the next Spirit, and that would be the once-reputable, once-universally beloved, once-proclaiming to love their customers, Southwest Airlines.

*or not, given the general direction of the company over the span of the last two years

Over the span of the last 12+ months, Southwest has made a tremendous amount of operational changes, with almost none of them being remotely beneficial to consumers.  First, it was them ceasing the whole open seating policy they had, which, to some was welcome, but to others, a sign of conformity and how they were taking one step closer to becoming another United or American or any other middling airline.  Then, in a move that definitely rose the ire of travelers, was the implementation of baggage fees, when for years prior, they boasted how bags flew free. 

And just over the last few days alone, Southwest has continued moving in conceivably the wrong direction, by announcing a large slew of route cuts, that will adversely affect lots of travelers from having direct options, and even had the audacity to try to spin that layovers were opportunities to see different parts of the country.  For as long as it took them to get their hooks into Atlanta, it looks like they’re already trying to reduce, with supposedly over 50% fewer flights this time next year, departing from ATL.

But one new development that is sure to draw the wrath of the internet as well as many around the country is their redefining of the large passenger policy, which was previously that large passengers could purchase a single seat, and get a second seat por gratis, if the flight could accommodate it, which was polarizingly applauded by many as a firm stance of allyship of inclusion of people of all body shapes and sizes.  Under their new policy, large passengers will have to preemptively purchase two seats if they know they will need them, and refunds of the second seat would be taken into consideration but not guaranteed, presumably on a case-by-case basis.

The latter is still probably better than what most other airlines offer, but it doesn’t take a genius to anticipate that the wrath of the internet is just going to see this as a sign of Southwest hates fat people, and when perception becomes reality, they become just like all the other airlines in the end.

The point is, Southwest is seemingly giving no more fucks about customers, contrary to the general brand reputation of theirs over the last two decades prior.  They’ve made it crystal clear that they are trying to profit in a competitive market, which is white people speak for, we know we’d probably be fine operating like we had been over the last half century, but we want to make more money now, so we’re going to say fuck the people and just do what everyone else is doing in order to achieve that.

I mean ultimately, that is the goal of every business in the world, to make money, but there are ways to do it and keep integrity and respect of the people intact, but that of course, often comes at a cost in itself, and when a bunch of old white guys run all these corporations, integrity and respect quickly fall to the wayside in pursuit of those extra nickels and dimes.

But it is funny how rapidly Southwest is selling their soul in order to go from successful company to asshole-rich successful company.  A part of me begins to wonder if Southwest isn’t deliberately tanking their company in one of those strange-but-typical modus operandi of businesses slashing expenses in a massive manner through liquidation and layoffs, in anticipation of a company sale or merger, and that Southwest is somewhere in a process of selling the company or getting absorbed by another airline.

And if so, a little more to be poured out for the airline industry, because within the guts of Southwest Airlines exists the remnants of AirTran, the budget airline that did succeed, and that I flew the shit out of, because they accomplished absolutely everything I needed out of an airline at reasonable costs.  Spirit and Frontier never could accomplish the things AirTran did, and AirTran did so well, they got assimilated into Southwest, who like Microsoft or Adobe basically did in so in order to kill a competitor.

Regardless of what happens to Southwest’s business in the future, if there was ever a bigger red flag of how they could become the next Spirit, look no further than the terminal incident out of Orlando, where a Southwest passenger went ballistic, and assaulted a terminal worker, as well as smashed up some monitors.  It’s funny because if this were actually Spirit, the lady would have been tazed and arrested within moments of the first aggression, but it’s like Southwest still has a lot to learn about unruly passengers, and she went unchecked for a while before presumably getting dealt with long after the cameras stopped rolling.

But if Southwest continues down this downward spiral, anticipate way more of this bullshit, and their gates will become the future places to meander to when you have a long wait before your flight after Spirit is gone, with hopes that you might see a street fight or a massive hot mess passenger meltdown.

Cracker Barrel’s rebrand: the question stands

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

USA Today: Cracker Barrel unveils a new logo; the internet is unsurprisingly not impressed

When the day is over, I have no skin in the game of the existence of Cracker Barrel.  Full disclosure, I haven’t been to a Cracker Barrel since I lived on the south side of the city, when they opened a brand new Cracker Barrel not far (relatively) from my old place, and upon going there, all the big wigs and managers and trainers were there, so everyone was on their best behavior and it was actually a decent experience.

But no matter if people hate the new logo or people love it, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it one way or the other, and can only really share opinions and thoughts based on the creative direction of it, as well as relish in some of the less tasteful jokes that the internet is particularly known for generating about anything and everything in existence.

But my first blush impression and my knee-jerk reaction upon seeing the new Cracker Barrel logo was that of unsurprise at the fact that they removed both the man and the barrel, and have homogenized it down to an uninspired shape.  However, I am surprised at the fact that they did manage to keep the general wordmark of the text mostly intact, instead of just typing out “cracker barrel” in a variation of Helvetica Neue or Myriad, like so many companies inevitably do, as if they’re determined to not pay anyone for a font, and are completely at peace with just writing it out in system default fonts.

So it’s kind of a push in the sense that they did murder all the character and uniqueness of the logo by removing both the man and the barrel, as well as the unsymmetrical shape in which the wordmark was housed, but still managed to preserve some sense of character, familiarity and recognition by at least keeping the wordmark mostly the same.

A hexagon with rounded corners isn’t a vanilla rhombus or oval like so many brands have boiled down to in this modern business space, and at least they appear to have kept their primary color intact; however, it appears they’ve cheapened up by swapping out their brown for a black, thus making future production simplified in that they technically only need one additional color outside of black and white.

Honestly, the container looks a little too large for the wordmark, and in the event like creating signage and advertising materials, the general proportion of it compared to the Cracker Barrel name is might end up looking comical, or lead to some comically large signs in order to compensate.

But like I said, when the day is over, I do not care one iota about this rebrand, beyond the obvious joke that was made in the shown screen grab – why DID they get rid of both the cracker and the barrel??  Considering the brand is kind of synonymous for being a white people eatery, not entirely sure why they’d go to the lengths of alienating them by removing paw-paw from the logo, but whatever.  As far a corporate rebrands go, this one is far from the worst, and it’s not going to suddenly make me want to deal with the shitty parking situations enough to want to actually go to a Cracker Barrel again any time soon.

I don’t think the WNBA’s Dildogate is funny, at all

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This may come as a shock to my zero readers and people who know me who think they have me pegged as this occasionally bro-ey, sports guy jock man, who might find humor in the now-barrage, of flying dildos hitting the courts at WNBA games, but the truth is, I don’t.  I didn’t think it was funny the first time, I didn’t think it was funny the fifth time, and I don’t think it will be funny if and when it happens multiple more times throughout the duration of this season.

I get all the jokes, about how Dildogate has ironically been some of the most exposure the WNBA has had since Caitlin Clark showed up, and to some degree there is no such thing as bad exposure as long as people are talking about the WNBA.  To which such observations aren’t necessarily incorrect, logically, but I just think it’s really juvenile and stupid, and to echo what Sophie Cunningham said, there is an aspect of safety being put at risk by it.

And that’s where this whole thing blew up, was the fact that a player acknowledged it, and worse off, attempted to dissuade the behavior, because if there’s one thing that’s never been more prevalent about human nature, is that people do not like being told what to do, and now more than ever, telling someone to not do something is basically like demanding everyone to defy it, because that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

The only joke I will make is that this, is clearly another growing pain the WNBA and their players need to learn, get used to, and adapt about having the increase of awareness to their sport, much like Kelsey Plum needing to understand that autograph hounds are a part of sport, and it might be preferable to be a little weirded out but actually have fans who want autographs in the first place, regardless of what their intentions are with them.

But back to Dildogate, yeah I think it’s juvenile, stupid, and a sad attempt by a bunch of assholes, regardless of their gender or orientation, to shit on the WNBA and actively work against their growth through sabotage and just flat trolling.  Maybe this is just old man thinking, or maturity or whatever, but I guess I don’t think it’s cool to actively put in work against someone else’s livelihoods, especially for nothing more than the sake of the lulz. 

Like, it would make more sense if there were a personal vendetta against the league by those perps flinging sex toys onto the court, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that such isn’t the case, as much as it’s just a bunch of clowns who think they’re being funny by doing such.

It’s not only delaying games, I do think it does carry a measure of security and safety risk, because the league is trying to dissuade it from happening by implementing more stringent rules of what’s allowed inside arenas, but as trolls do, they’re exerting more effort and energy into trying to defeat systems and get them into arenas, rather than absolutely anything else productive in their lives.  Obviously, this sets up a lot of easy jokes about those who will get them into the arenas by putting them into themselves, and seeing as how the latest flying dildo occurred after one of the increased security measures had come into effect, it probably has already occurred.

However, one thing I do find amusing about this is the fact that somewhere out there, are people who are either going into sex toy shops or making purchases on the internet, for dildos; they can try to fast-talk about how it’s a joke for the WNBA game that they’re going to, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got, at this point, numerous cases of grown-ass people purchasing dildos, full stop.

Or perhaps, the people throwing them, already had them, and are just looking for a convenient excuse to unload them.  But they still had them.  For whatever reason.

Sorry, even if I did find this whole thing funny and wanted to be a troll and participate, I don’t think I could bring myself to go out and  buy a dildo.

Either way, I hope this dumb meme trend ends soon, but I’m going to guess it’ll probably last the whole season, if not more, but if there’s one thing that the WNBA should take into consideration, and I’ll leave it up to them to figure it out, as sure as telling people what not to do is going to make them do it, nothing kills a meme faster than acknowledging it, accepting it, and owning it.  The power is stripped away from it, and then it’s not fun for the trolls to bother using it further.  The implications of what might need to happen are not pleasant, but then again, neither is repeatedly seeing talk about dildos on sports news on a regular basis.

MLB Speedway Classic: great success not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

FTW: MLB’s Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway featuring the Atlanta Braves vs. Cincinnati Reds turns out to be massive failure for attendees, sparking comparisons to Fyre Festival

There was a moment on Saturday with the weather being all wet and crappy, where I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be ownage if the Speedway Classic got rained on and the game couldn’t take place?

That’s always the inherent risk with an outdoor sport like baseball, and trying to coordinate a singular, special event game; the one absolute thing that cannot be controlled – the weather.  And almost if I prophesized the event, the weather did come into play at the Speedway Classic, and no matter how much MLB tried to stall, delay and wait out the weather, they only managed to get in a single inning of game in before they threw their hands up and suspended the game, proclaiming the game would be resumed the following day; on what was supposed to be a rare Sunday day off for the Braves and Reds, on account of them altering their schedules to accommodate a special event game.

So, owned.

To the fans in attendance who were probably hoping to watch the game, and either skip town and or make a trip of it on Sunday – also owned.

Television rights having to adjust for the unpredictable schedule change – owned.

However, all this ownage aside, on the ground level, as among the alleged 90,000+ attendees who descended onto Bristol Motor Speedway, hoping to be in attendance for a supposed special event of monumental proportions, there was apparently a whole lot more ownage, which as the angst and frustration grew, many were more than eager and willing to vent to the internet.

And as much as I’m the type of fan who loves baseball so much that I hate it, few things make me arrogantly smirk in satisfaction than whenever MLB fucks things up, which is precisely what happened with how they handle the ground operations at the Speedway Classic.

Most notably, the sheer lack of preparedness when it came to handling the event at the stadium level, with countless gripes about there being inadequate or not enough food available to attendees, primarily summed up by a photo montage of nachos without cheese and hot dogs without buns, with there being some very quick comparisons to the photo of a shitty sandwich that became the photographic embodiment of the notorious Fyre Festival shitshow.

Fans who aired out their frustration were immediately combatted by mostly people who weren’t there who for whatever reason feel the need to defend MLB, the event or venue, but it just leads to an absolute clusterfuck where nobody wins and people like me just want to sit back and watch the carnage like the Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif.

But aside from the debacles revolving around food, there were many allegations of them running out of food and merchandise all before the game even got under way, and lots of piling on to the flop of the logistics of an event scheduled well beyond a year ago, despite the fact that it was at a NASCAR venue which holds multiple races a year without breaking a sweat, and the general consensus that it’s massive egg on MLB’s face for such horrendous planning.

Frankly, I don’t even really know why MLB wanted to do this in the first place.  My guess is that it’s a veiled temperature check to see how the region supports MLB, because between Nashville and Raleigh, there’s always rumor about possible MLB expansion, with that general mid-Atlantic region being considered.  But also MLB doesn’t need any reasons for doing anything other than the fact that they’re greedy cocksuckers who are trying to make money by any means necessary, and holding special events seems like an easy cash grab, no matter how poorly they execute it because fans are gullible and easy to manipulate into forking over their dough.

Make no mistake, this was entirely MLB’s fault for such poor planning, and such poor execution.  And I love to see it, especially since I’m so far removed from my baseball fandom that I was nowhere remotely close to experiencing it.  Maybe a decade ago when I was still pretty hard into my fandom, I’d be tempted to be a part of it, but I’m really fucking glad that I’m where I’m at now, and had no interest in it.

And of course, the Braves won the game, in spite of them giving up a run in the one inning they played on Saturday.  Which kind of stinks from the standpoint of that the Braves will hold onto this meaningless win and inject as much meaning into it as possible amidst a horrendous season, and I don’t want them to have any wins to celebrate, because this team will never truly ever get better unless they hit a bottom that really makes them try to rethink the way they operate.

But whatever, massive lol’s on my end, for all the sheer amounts of ownage that was doled out over the weekend on account of MLB’s pathetic fuck ups.

Matthew Stafford’s wife put him into a no-win situation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

US Weekly: LA Rams QB Matthew Stafford judged by the internet for sitting in first class while his wife and four daughters sat in coach; unbeknownst to the many, it was arranged by his wife

Talk about a true no-win situation to be put in here, and the wonder if his wife set him up or not.  NFL quarterback sits in first class, while his wife and four daughters sit in coach; at first blush, it sounds like a chauvinistic asshole flexing his status as a man, a breadwinner, and a professional athlete against his wife and kids, plopping himself into the comfort and luxury of first class, while they all get to sit in the pleeb class.

Naturally, as the internet goes, first blushes and knee-jerk reactions are all any targets get, and Matthew Stafford is now branded an asshole, a douche, a selfish pig who has no respect for his wife, his kids, all women, etc, but then we come to find out that this whole thing was set up entirely by his own wife, who seems to like to tout that they have a no-nonsense travel policy:

I told Matthew, ‘Listen, point A to point B. There’s a flight. Let’s just get on it. It’s fine,’”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about marriage, a wife, or women in general, when a woman says to you “It’s fine,” the shit is already Chernobyl and there’s nothing you can do about it, except begin damage control.  The more I re-read this story, the more I feel like Kelly Stafford probably had some existing beef or receipt to give poor Matthew, and found this flight as an excellent opportunity to exorcise it.  And the most diabolical part about it was the fact that she didn’t tell him about it at all, until it was boarding time.

Poor Matthew even knew what was going to happen when once the jig was up and he learned that he’d be separated from his family in first class versus everyone else:

He was like, ‘I’m gonna look like the biggest a**hole,’”

Of course, the wife had to have known this as well, but at this point they were already past no-return, and she instead tried to play it off like it would be the fault of those who would choose, and undoubtedly would choose, to judge:

Listen, if people have time to consider you to be an a**hole because your 6’3” self is not gonna sit in the back with everyone in your family who is 5’3” and under, then they’ve got bigger issues.”

In the end, predictably, regardless of the facts and context behind the whole thing, Matthew Stafford looks like an asshole for sitting in first class, and Kelly Stafford and their four Stepford Children of the Corn daughters all look like martyrs, farming up pity and sympathy, sitting in pleeb class.  Probably not saying much to defend her husband to those throwing shade in person, as much as she’s getting to be quoted for a written piece.

Whew, piece of work that Kelly Stafford is.  Ain’t nobody going to convince me that this wasn’t wholly orchestrated as a result of some marital beef or microaggression that she felt that required retribution in a manner that was a no-win for Matthew, and a complete win for her.

No wonder Matthew Stafford was able to keep such a cool head for all those years he played for the Lions, because going home some days was probably way worse than playing in Detroit.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: This, is going to be my favorite story this #SZN

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Trent Crimm, the Independent: braggadocious teen mogul goes viral after being rejected by nearly all applied colleges, in spite of monumental qualifications

I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say that I don’t think any story for the rest of the #SZN is going to top this one.  Sure, the #TRYHARD only applied to 18 schools, but he was rejected by 15 of them, despite having incredible qualifications as far as grades, accomplishments and frankly, life experiences went.

What we have here, is probably one of the greatest examples in history of how the wrong attitude and approach can absolutely shitcan your chances of acceptance in the real world, because if you were to take the time to read this article and read his college essay, that he thinks he’s so important as to call his personal statement, it becomes absolutely crystal clear to why this he was rejected by nearly every school he applied to, despite having excellent grades, tests well, and the intelligence and savvy to become a young entrepreneur of a successful and profitable app.

Many have already pointed out and dissected all of the numerous reasons to why this #TRYHARD was shot down in such embarrassingly overwhelming fashion, but it really boils down to the fact that his college essay absolutely turned off just about every single recruiter with any pull or power to accept.

He basically shits on the whole notion of going to college, proclaims he had no intention of going to college, and sees college as simply ‘a rite of passage’ for teenagers growing up.  Absolutely no college in America would want to admit some kid who has no real aspirations once they’re in the door, and comes off as a massive flight-risk of dropping out, because he already has success and earning potential in his life right now.

It feels like he’s watched too many rite of passage movies, where plots of claimed that in order to stand out in the college application process, one has to be bold, take chances, and tell an incredible story.  As insufferably braggadocious his essay is, it’s extremely well written, reads well and tells a story, but the fact of the matter is that real life isn’t a movie, and there’s a level of vanilla, boring decorum that is expected, and frankly required, when doing things like applying to colleges or jobs. 

Proclaiming your disinterest for college and then bragging about all the reasons why you feel that way before saying “but oh wait, college is a rite of passage so I guess I should do it” wasn’t the right choice, and I’m honestly more flabbergasted at the fact that this #TRYHARD didn’t have anyone in his life to give him the guidance or advice that, yo, maybe this essay isn’t the right approach. 

I got the vibe that this kid has probably been raised with little emperor syndrome, which is pretty common in lots of Chinese and Middle Eastern cultures, where the first born son is basically invincible from criticism and coddled and sheltered from real world scenarios, and if he even sought any guidance about his essay, was probably told it was great and to run with it.  Oops.

What’s funnier is the fact that this #TRYHARD took his beef to the internet, with the implication being that he genuinely thought the collective internet would really be on his side once he made his story public.  As tone-deaf and clearly blind to understanding how the college application process works, he’s clearly as clueless to how the internet works, and in no time flat, he’s been dismantled, dissected and picked apart by the internet, with as much success finding people who sympathize with him as he was accepted into schools.

On a side note, yeah the #TRYHARD biffed on all of the Ivies he tried to get into, but kind of a low-blow by the Independent to throw shade at the schools he did get into, calling Georgia Tech, the U and Texas “less prestigious” schools.  I mean, they are less prestigious schools as far as not being Ivy League, but they’re all solid educational institutions, with excellent specific programs, and all flush with cash on account of robust athletic programs.  And they all clearly were capable of looking past his shit attitude and see the potential, and gave him the green light, when better or equally qualified applicants probably didn’t.

I know I take shots at Georgia Tech all the time, but there’s no denying the school is among the top engineering schools in the country, and it might have the name value of MIT, but it’s no slouch as far as its educational credentials are concerned.

Frankly, #TRYHARD here has two options – forego college like he believed he was destined to do, focus on his app and ecommerce acumen, and follow the path of Zuck and become wealth and something without a college degree.  Or, attend Georgia Tech and get an excellent education, go to Texas and soak in the college sport and immersive college atmosphere, or go to the U, where he’d be living in Miami and lean into Miami living.

As owned as he might have been in the college applications game, and on the internet, he’s still in a very enviable position overall.  He has acceptances to some “less prestigious” but reputable schools, basically his own business, and he’s still just 18 years old.  There’s a tremendous time for him to learn and grow and grow the fuck up, and this would be a critical year and good basis for him to punt on 2025, take a gap year and try again the next year, and find some humility and perhaps use this experience as a means to write an essay that’s not quite so insufferable as much as demonstrating the experience of being humbled and growing from it.

Either way, who doesn’t love a good story of some dumbass getting owned?  And even better that it falls within the realm of #TRYHARDSZN, and ultimately is an opposite-story of instead of some #TRYHARD getting into 155 schools and amassing millions in cumulative scholarship offers, it’s someone who got rejected by a bunch of schools, and entirely because of his own stupidity.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: Good effort, but not enough trying hard

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

11AliveOnMySide: Fairburn, Georgia teen accepted into 53 colleges with $1.5M in scholarships earned

After writing about the chica that notched 155 acceptances and $6M in scholarships, #TRYHARDs like this one just seem so pale in comparison to write about.  Which really sucks for them, because being a student with a 4.0 GPA and hoovering up 50+ college acceptances really is something to be proud of, but I guess this is what happens when #TRYHARD culture has become the thing it’s become, and gives a glimpse to why #TRYHARDs #TRYHARD.

As important as education is, to those in the #TRYHARDing game, attention and notoriety seems to matter just a little bit more.  What with all the insufferable humblebragging, the photoshoots and general look-at-me behavior by all those that #TRYHARD, it’s apparent that the actual education at the end of the journey is secondary to the two seconds of internet notoriety that comes with being the best of the best when it comes to #TRYHARDing and accumulating as many college acceptances as possible while more than likely, not having to pay a cent in application fees.

Which is a shame, because a lot of the stories of the people who become #TRYHARDs are really fascinating and inspiring up until the point where they decide to do what they do because they want the attention.  Like this one chica from close to where I used to live, which was a pretty desolate wasteland back then, and is seemingly worse now, has still managed to emerge from the muck and be a student with a 4.0 GPA, volleyball player, and somehow has the tenacity to be working two jobs, really is the embodiment of hard work.

But at some point in her journey, it was decided to become a #TRYHARD, and the question becomes if the grades, the extracurriculars, and the jobs, are they for the purpose of building character and necessity, or are they the purpose for padding a personal resume to feed into the next stage of life to where additional #TRYHARDing is all that life is going to be until they’re anonymous adults who hate their lives and wonder what their formative teenage years went.

I can’t remember who said it between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but one of them had a story about when they were young and in high school, and they were being touted as future megastars and can’t-miss prospects, they were reminded that as great as they think they were, inevitably there would always be someone out there who was working harder, and was probably better than you were.  And as inevitable as greatness finding greatness is, Bird and Magic eventually encountered each other at the college ranks, a rivalry was born, carrying into the NBA, and the debate still lives on whom of the two was the better player.

And as impressive as 53 and $1.5M should be, in the grand spectrum of things, just up the street from where this #TRYHARD was doing her thing, she probably wasn’t aware of a queen bee #TRYHARDingn way harder than she was en route to her 155 and $6M.  And there is no debate on whom of the two was the bigger #TRYHARD.

As I said before, it’s going to be a real hard act to follow, and I almost don’t want to waste my time writing about lesser #TRYHARDs unless a real noteworthy #TRYHARD comes along, but we’ll see how time permits in the coming months of #TRYHARDSZN2025.