Month: September 2025

I always knew Ken Rosenthal was a little prick off-camera

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yahoo: FOX sports reporter, Ken Rosenthal, getting dragged on the internet for his behavior of inadvertently knocking over a photographer and giving him a death stare instead of any sort of apology or help getting up

I’d be willing to wager that lots of baseball fans whom might have a shred of similar thinking to I might, probably all agree that there’s something about Ken Rosenthal that probably gives off this air of potential dick.  And then seeing video evidence of him accidentally trucking some poor Brewers photographer, and then instead of any sort of offering to help or motion of remorse, he just stands glaring down at a prone person on their back, uncomfortably long, before returning to conduct an on-field post-game interview; that’s all the internet needed, to race to the conclusion that most of us probably already hypothesized – Ken Rosenthal is a douche.

I mean just look at him, with his vast collection of dorky bow ties and his spray tans and bleached teeth.  Always ready with an artificial smile for the camera.  I get that he’s in media, and he’s trying to cultivate a brand for himself, so that he’ll always remain employed and not lose his job to some hotties working their way up in sports journalism.  But there’s always been this air of arrogance and inflated sense of entitlement that he belongs in MLB reporting or something that I can’t really capture in writing, but just trust me bro, it’s there kind of feelings.

Like, if you were to ask him about baseball in general, I bet he wouldn’t be able to name all 30 MLB squads, or be able to snap back with a favorite player if asked.  There’s just something about his whole presentation and existence that seems fake and artificial and just like this dorky little brother syndrome of clinging to MLB coverage that nobody would really miss if he were gone,

And then he has to go and get caught on video, reacting abruptly and as genuine as a quick reaction makes us do, and of course he gets a pass for running into a person, everyone in existence has done that before.  But it’s the death stare, and the disrespect, and the sheer lack of regard for another human being that has gotten the internet up in arms, and I am here for the Ken Rosenthal dragging, because the Braves suck, and it’s shit like this and all the Dodgers’ close no-hitters getting fucked that sustain my interest in a fledgling baseball season.

Seriously, the way Rosenthal was glaring down at this poor photographer, the closest thing I could liken it to was when Scottie Pippen dunked all over Patrick Ewing in the 94 playoffs, and then stood over him and glared down.  That’s the level of disrespect I gathered from this five second moment of him, and it entertains me tremendously seeing how such did not go unnoticed from the rest of the internet as well, and the ensuing reactions from all over the internet.

Especially funny are all the other rando people on the internet all basically saying the same shit I am of, I knew he was a [pejorative] all along, and then they cite the same shit that I did, most notably the bow ties.

Either way, I’m sure some calculated and hackneyed apology that nobody is going to buy is on the way, but as far as blunders of the 2025 MLB season, as entertained as I was by asshole Ken Rosenthal, I don’t think he’s going to have a snowball’s chance in hell at toppling Philly Karen.

Wrestlemania XLIII in Saudi Arabia? Thanks I hate it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I heard the rumblings that Wrestlemania was going to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2027, I had two thoughts run through my mind:

  1. This was always going to happen eventually, I guess most of us wrestling fans didn’t expect it to happen just yet. When the WWE got in bed with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, most fans saw a gamut of dollar amounts being thrown around as the cost of the union, with the only thing in common being that they were all ridiculously high with absolutely nothing measured in millions, but billions.  There was always talks and rumors that eventually Wrestlemania would make its way into the kingdom, but honestly I figured that at least Europe would have gotten a shot to host a ‘Mania before Saudi Arabia, but as is the way of the world, money talks.

  2. Regardless, I hate it. I’ve always been vehemently opposed to everything in regards to the WWE’s partnership with Saudi Arabia, and the only reason why I spite-watch the shows that they hold out there is that over the last few years, they’ve actually woven storylines into the Saudi shows as if they were going to Birmingham, Alabama for a PPV, and I have FOMO on any progressions in them.
    Yes, I know that makes my wrestling fandom a little bit (more) gray, but at the end of the day, I’m still a fan of the business, and I like to consume as much of it as I can, even if I don’t like the town they’re in.

But I am not a fan of the Saudi culture, which no matter how many billions they dump into the world economy to try to change the world’s perspective on them, doesn’t change the fact that they exist in a reality where women are full-stop, a full-ass tier beneath men, and there is absolutely nothing a woman could to do change the status quo.  Forcing them, as well as all visiting women to adhere to their bullshit laws of being completely covered up and probably other nonsensical things that would probably result in a beheading if violated.

Furthermore, they’re a culture of extreme homophobia, transphobia and just plain opposed to the LGBTQ+ community entirely.  Frankly, they’re just a culture of extreme prejudice in general, and early on in the arrangement, it was known fact that if Sami Zayn were to even step foot in the country, he would probably be killed, due to the conflicts in Syria and him being a native Syrian.

Honestly, I know I’ve said my piece about how I feel about Saudi culture, and I don’t much see the point in typing in circles and doing it again.  I just hate that the WWE has finally pulled the trigger on SaudiMania, and we’re less than two years again from the showcase of the immortals™ having to be broadcast from a culturally backward country at very likely an extremely inconvenient time to account for time zone, and I’ll probably get completely spoiled to everything by the time I can get to watch it, because not only can the internet never shut the fuck up, the WWE themselves has a really nasty habit of firing off emails in real time to the show, announcing critical results in order to hock their shitty overpriced merch powered by Fanatics™.

However, I had another thought while pondering this post: if there were ever a time for AEW to launch a genuine tactical strike against the WWE with the sole intention to gain industry footprint, I think this would be the perfect opportunity to do so.

Like, AEW books a show on the same weekend, entirely to counter and challenge SaudiMania.  Absolutely load the card, spread it over two nights.  Collaborate with everyone, especially since all the smaller and indy feds that love to book in the WWE’s gravity during Mania weekend probably won’t be able to do so if they’re in fucking Saudi Arabia, in order to help stack the card.

Hold it at EverBank and not Daily’s Place, where they could fill probably 50-60k, which would be a huge economic win especially since April is not football season, and since Daddy Shahid owns the team, it’s probably basically a free venue less the cost of event operations.

Run it free with existing subscription on HBO Max with any additional charge, to mitigate one of their biggest handicaps against the WWE, which is the fact that they effectively still operate on a pay-per-view model.

Capitalize on all of the western and global WWE fans who probably won’t be able to get into SaudiMania for fear of getting beheaded or just plain not being able to afford the royal cost of tickets.  Emotions are already high and resentful towards the E for running in Saudi, and if there ever was a moment in time to try and flip any fans, this would absolutely be it.

Over the last year, WWE hasn’t been shy about running counter to AEW, even though they claim that they don’t view them as competition.  And maybe it’s because they are still kind of the little brother in the real/unreal rivalry between them, AEW has for the most part avoided running shows on dates that the WWE had “claimed.”

But I’m just saying, I feel like if there was ever a chance for AEW to take the offensive and have it do some noticeable impact, running a mega show right on top of SaudiMania’s dates, could possibly be effective.  A combination of fan resentment and the likely time difference could lead to it running almost entirely unopposed, and if they deliver, could have some massive effectiveness at closing the gap with their competition.

I’m not saying such would make me a massive AEW fan for life, but I think I’m in a position where I’d prefer to see the E take a ding for their poor decision making, and if it means supporting their competition, so be it.  I don’t hate AEW by any stretch of the imagination, I just find their brand of product to be puzzling at times, but it does not meant that I wouldn’t want to see them succeed as well.  AEW being prosperous is good for the industry as a whole, certainly more than an arrangement with fucking Saudi Arabia.

Jayden Daniels is about as Japanese as a NASCAR Toyota

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There was once an episode of King of the Hill where there was an all-Asian country club in Arlen that just kind of out of the blue began trying to woo and get Hank to become a member.  It was later revealed that the club needed to have at least one non-Asian member to get some sort of sponsorship with the PGA, which would culminate with a visit from, “the greatest Asian player in the history of the game – Tiger Woods.”

Ultimately, Hank realizes the ruse and not wanting to be a token whitey, declines the membership.  Khan, desperate to gain clout with the Asian elite of Arlen ultimately decides to hang with his redneck neighbors instead, and we have a fairly happy ending for the main characters.

But the point of this backstory is mainly revolving around the joke about how Tiger Woods is the greatest Asian golfer in history, despite the fact that most of America doesn’t identify him at all by his Asian heritage, despite the fact that his genetic background contains a fairly substantial amount of genes originating from China and Thailand.

Because that’s basically precisely what the NFL is doing when they start declaring Jayden Daniels the first ever Japanese quarterback in the history of the league.  Apparently, despite the fact that he appears to identify as a black man, he has a great-grandmother who was Japanese, and has thusly decided to honor an ancestor three generations removed, by putting a Japanese flag on the back of his helmet, which basically served as the impetus to this whole story.

Depending on the genetic backgrounds of his predecessors, Daniels is probably no more than like 12.5% Japanese; I don’t know what percentage of indigenous someone needs to claim in order to get to run a casino, but I imagine it’s somewhere slightly more than 12.5% in order to do so, but that’s not stopping the NFL from seeing potential dollar signs and cultural outreach with Daniels’ pithy amount of Japanese in his genetics.

By saying the first-ever Japanese QB, you’d think they were talking about someone who looked like Ken Watanabe or Hiroyuki Sanada.  Don’t get me wrong, Daniels is a good looking kid, but to say Japanese guy and flash this guy’s face?  As the kids say, the fuck outta here

NFL be grasping at some real low-hanging fruit in tryna spin this shit into some global outreach, and that the NFL is a global game on par with futbol.  If they really wanted to really glorify football americano in Japan, they’d talk about shit like how when Japan crushed the USA in some foreign exhibition, if they really wanted to garner interest in the sport overseas.

Jayden Daniels is an outsanding player and has managed to bring a feeling of hope back to Washington Football, but he’s about as Japanese as the Toyota RAV-4 driven by the MAGA idiot down the street who flaunts his racism and hate for all that aren’t white, and the NFL looks like a bunch of clowns trying to portray him as anything other than such.

Korea vs. Everybody: Rosé at the VMAs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure why this came across my feeds, but it definitely did the trick of triggering my KvE radar and got the gears of wanting to write about it spinning pretty quickly.

TL;DR, Korean pop star Rosé, most notably known for being a member of BLACKPINK, wins MTV Video Music Award for Song of the Year, for APT, her solo track collaboration with Bruno Mars – and the celebrity circle jerk around her goes mild.  Meanwhile, Ariana Grande wins Best Pop Song and everyone in the crowd reacts like new Jordans have been dropped in the hood.

I understand that in the grand spectrum of western celebrity, Rosé, BLACKPINK and K-pop in general aren’t entitled to the adulation that of those already entrenched in American culture, and when it comes down to it, Koreans aren’t that well known among their peers at an American event.  If this kind of event were held in Seoul, people would go gonzo over Rosé’s award, but they’d also probably go ballistic over all the Americans too because if there’s one obnoxious thing about Korean culture is that they’re so enamored and thirsty for American validation, that they kowtow fairly quickly, even when it’s so not deserved.

But what chapped my ass the most was Rosé’s interaction with Daniel Ramos, one of the co-directors of the video.  Rosé tried to initiate some sort of celebratory hug/embrace after winning fucking Song of the Year, and man denied her faster than a woman would shoot down an incel at a bar.

Yes, nobody is required to return an interaction if they don’t want to, but like bruh, Rosé just won you a Song of the Year award, and he brushing her off like there was lettuce on his Subway when he specifically asked for none.

But when Ariana Grande wins, at least what I’d say is a lesser award, everyone in the audience gets out of their seats and is slapping fives and hugs and basically acting like they just witnessed Mac McClung’s latest 10/10 dunk at the dunk contest.

I have no qualms with Ariana Grande, frankly I think she’s quite talented and has a powerful voice that belts out some decent music relatively, but I’m just trying to understand why there’s that much disparity in respect in reaction between two talented pop stars other than nationality.

Fuck it, it’s racism; even if it’s not the malicious brand of it.  It’s typical disrespect for Koreans and what Koreans are capable of.  Fuckin white folks and their cliques of whitewashed star fuckers all disrespecting Rosé and denying her even the most basic of reciprocal respect in her moment of victory.  I bet if Bruno Mars were with her, shit would’ve been way the fuck different.

Would love to have a time machine to be able to tell her that everyone in that venue are a bunch of busters that aren’t worth her validation, and that she should take that VMA award and drop it in the trash like Alundra Blayze and then go back to the Motherland where her talents would be recognized and respected.

It’s shit like this that makes me think the words Korea vs. Everybody, and I feel like I should take it more seriously and maybe use that as my basis for putting my stamp on the internet.

Who didn’t see this coming with AI?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago when I went to Adobe MAX, little did I realize that this would be the year in which the whole event would basically be this gargantuan circle jerk over the advancements of AI.  I mean, fuck me for thinking that I’d be able to go attend some panels and workshops and perhaps maybe learn a few things or tricks about the software I use on a regular basis, and not just listen to all these pitches about how AI is going to impact them all, feeling like one of the only clear-thinking attendees that saw that most everything was being developed with the intention to ultimately usurp all of our jobs in the near to distant future.

However, as big of moonshot ideas existed over the capabilities of AI, I knew what was more likely to occur first – a whole lot of fucking nonsense.  Like, a metric containership fleet load of fucking nonsense, especially once most AI tools, apps and functions were made available to the general public.  And it was going to be a matter of time before AI-generated content was going to permeate and eventually run rampant across the internet, mainly throughout social media, and then even more so than originally, absolutely nothing would be seen as genuine or authentic, and even more everything would be forced to be put in question on its authenticity.

I mean, we’ve crossed that bridge quite some time ago now, but it hasn’t been until more recently that it bubbled up in my mind to be worth throwing up some words onto the brog to spit my two cents out about the topic.

It’s like, most everyone probably has a story about a person(s) they’ve known in their lives that were the people who always latched onto a joke or a meme a little harder than everyone else, and well after the general heat of a joke has simmered down, they’re the ones still spamming it, referencing it, and inadvertently assisting the killing of it for others.

Yeah, if you’re reading this, you probably know what I mean.  And it’s okay to say if you’ve been that person before, lord knows that I’ve definitely been that person multiple times in my life.

What I’m getting at is that AI has made it easier for people to become those people, who overuse and help kill jokes and memes faster, and frankly it’s doing a disservice to the virality and general heat of a good joke or a meme, when looking back at something, and the sheer amount of bullshit surrounding them drowns out the original material from the onset.

For example, the Phillies Karen saga, when it first started, that shit was nuclear hot.  A perfect example of a story gone viral, with it absolutely exploding.  Video clips, internet witch hunting, just about every news outlet and op-ed in the world throwing their two cents into the well.  But then about 2-3 days later, the memes began, first through just bad photoshops, but then came the AI-generated images, where the first few were clever and fist bumps for those who jumped on the horse early, but then shit rolls downhill real fast when every would-be comic on the internet that knows how to write an AI prompt wants to try and get their jokes in for whatever attention-seeking reasons.

Ghibli-fied images.  Deep-fake videos.  AI-generated scenarios of Phillies Karen in various other movies, shows or stories demanding to be given possession of X.  Like, it’s funny for the first two seconds, but as the heat cools off, the constant stream of bad AI-generated content ultimately makes people like me wish that the original source of the meme never happened, so that I wouldn’t have to be subject to such bad abuse of AI tools to make up for the lack of creative talent that exists out there.

This is just one example of how AI is hurting the internet.  Who cares about how easy it makes students cheat in school, and how it’s acting like a miracle writer for people to lazy to do it themselves.  Who cares about how it’s able to take redundant, menial tasks and complete them in seconds, and who cares about the maybe 2-3 good things that AI has managed to accomplish.  It’s fucking with good memes and news and jokes, and this bullshit is the real lifeblood of the internet that perpetually bored scrollers and surfers need to get us through each day.

And because every motherfucker in the world has access to AI tools now, the amount of bad and lame bullshit content constantly overtakes anything real in a matter of time, and like I said, it gets to a point where you see so much turrible shit that you eventually wish the source of it never existed in the first place, regardless of how good it might be, in order to spare everyone from seeing lame shit.

As far as my opinion is concerned, the jury’s still out on if AI is still going to really be worth it in the long run.  I’m inclined to lean no, since I see it more than likely impacting my career adversely before I prosper from its existence, but one thing I do know about it now is that it’s polluting the internet with a lot of bullshit, which is pretty profound considering just how already full of nonsense it was before AI was made available to everyone.

LOL Dodgers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yahoo: Dodgers fall to the Orioles after the O’s score four runs in the 9th inning after being no-hit for 8 2/3 innings

As I’ve said a few times this season, mostly after the Dodgers were getting pwned all season by the lowly Angels, they’re probably going to be fine, and they’re probably going to be in the World Series later this season.  But man, when the Dodgers do fuck up, they fuck up in the most hilariously embarrassing ways possible.

I mean there’s honestly a much smaller list of ways to lose in a more embarrassing way than no-hitting a team through 26 out of 27 outs in a game, only for the opponent to go completely gangbusters with no more outs to play with and walk off in the blink of an eye, and I like to imagine Dodgers fans all around the world who were watching, anticipating witnessing a no-hitter, only for it to not only fall short, but for the wheels on the team to entirely fall off, and to immediately lose the game moments afterward.

In baseball, among the multitude of geeky stats and charts out there, is the win-expectancy metric, which measures the chance of victory for a team based on the outcome of every single pitch and out of the game.  The Dodgers went from 99.9% of winning the game going into the 9th inning, to a 100% loss in the span of minutes, and for fans like me, fewer things is more gratifying, satisfying and enjoyable to see than of all teams, it happening to the Dodgers.

I love all the people involved in this whole debacle too; the fact that it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto whom was on the precipice of greatness but then losing the no-hitter, the shutout and the complete game in one fell swoop, when he surrendered a home run to Jackson Holliday, a kid that I’m hoping still flourishes into the superstar that he was touted to be.  And then Blake Treinen, a kind of creepy right-wing bible thumper, who was brought in to close out the game, immediately walks two guys and gives up a hit to further deflate the Dodgers’ cushion from “salvage the win” to “oh shit we might actually lose.”  And when he failed to close out the game, they bring in Tanner Scott, the poor schmuck who is put in the unwinnable position to close out the game with baserunners on, naturally fails to do it, and the Dodgers go from 99.9% W to 100% L just like that.

It’s nonsense like this that I absolutely live for as a baseball fan, and despite the fact that the Dodgers are still the front-runners for another World Series, if they fail, everyone will be pointing at games like this one, or their inability to handle the Angels or Pirates, as reasons why they suck in spite of their go-zillion dollar payroll.

Phillies Karen: has to be the 2025 MLB Meme of the Year, right?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Countless: Nuclear viral moment captured when ‘Phillies Karen’ goes ballistic on a father over a caught home run baseball at a Phillies-Marlins game

When I first heard about this story, it was late in the evening and I didn’t really have the stamina to sit down and write about it, no matter how enticing of a topic it seemed like; hey, I’m wiped out by the evenings, I’m an old parent, tf off my nuts.  The following morning when I started to see it had caught fire and went viral, my kids were up, so I couldn’t really take the time to spout out my thoughts on the whole thing, and I’d occasionally check social media sporadically throughout the day only to see more and more coverage and development over the whole thing.

And by the time the kids were down and I had some time to write again, it had blown up so much, with so much traction and coverage on the whole thing, it became one of those scenarios where it’s like a hungry lion who leaps into a crowd of gazelle, but is unable to focus on any one of them, and instead scrambles around futilely, the gazelle all get away, and the lion is left hungry and overstimulated.

There’s so much to unpack about this whole thing that it’s difficult to really triangulate on any one aspect about it, and I don’t want to summarize the entire thing because it would take forever, and this has gotten so much coverage that there are likely way more efficient and better written takes about this whole thing than I could provide on a brog that nobody but me reads.

Like, I’m 100% in agreement with the dad who forfeited the ball pretty quickly, just to get out of the confrontation, no matter how much I’m sure I’d be able to argue it if I wanted to, but it’s one of those things that I’d rather not do in front of my entire family.  Real good on the Marlins’ PR and customer relations rep who showed up to give the dad’s kid a gift package, and I agree with lots of people on social media that more should be made about the staffer who came through for the family. 

And as much as I’m generally predisposed to root against the Phillies or any Philadelphia sports team for that matter, real-real good on the Phillies and Harrison Bader for reacting quickly to the story, and bringing the dad, his son, and the entire family into the personnel area for an impromptu meet and greet, and farm up positive karma and press.

But no matter all the good that came from this whole debacle, I don’t think at this point any ironic story is going to top the saga of Phillies Karen, as being the MLB Meme of the Year.  When the day is over, the bipartisan internet doesn’t gravitate towards the good of a story as much as they crave a tantalizing jerk for everyone to collectively point their crosshairs onto, which is precisely what happened with the internet going off on a massive witch hunt to try and identify and expose Phillies Karen for, basically being an asshole Karen caught on camera.

There’s been so much traction and movement in this story that it got to a point of not knowing what to believe is happening in the fallout.  Some claims that the person was identified and that they’ve already lost their job, some stories where the victim of mistaken identity has to defend herself, and naturally in this very recent day and age, a lot of AI, so much fucking AI, as far as fake photos and videos and all sorts of memes to already come into existence of everyone trying to get their slice of the internet attention in regards to a nuclear hot viral meme.

But the point is, this isn’t so obviously just the MLB Meme of the Year, this definitely has enough footing to be one of the most memorable memes of the year, just in general.  The Coldplay HR CEO guy meme people are probably breathing a sigh of relief at Phillies Karen taking the heat of getting caught on camera being an asshole, from him and his HR mistress.  Same goes for that Polish CEO who snatched the tennis player’s hat away from kid at the US Open, probably feeling real relieved that Phillies Karen has taken the heat away from him, especially after his cringeworthy ChatGPT-generated apology.

I mean the internet is all about what have you done for me recently, and any good meme is only as good until the next one emerges, but seeing as what has resulted from a singular action of some entitled old lady screaming at a dad over a $15 baseball, people out in public might just be a little more careful on how they act, especially when there’s the potential for television cameras to be recording everything, not to mention the hordes of randos who will whip out their phones and start recording at a moment’s notice at the slightest whiff of a potential confrontation.

But as much as I am enjoying the entertainment of a good meme come to life, what I’m really looking forward to is when the Phillies ultimately get bounced from the playoffs, there’s going to be all sorts of new and fresh memes and lots of fingers being pointed to this very specific moment of the baseball season, and the shit will just start all over again.

It’s funny too, because my general attitude towards Philadelphia and their sports culture had been softening over the last few years, but due to the emergence of Phillies Karen, it just gives me something to re-ignite the inevitable smug satisfaction of Philadelphia getting owned, and there being a very tangible totem or symbol of their future failures, that I look forward to others utilizing and spamming whenever it does happen.