Its Monday morning and I rise out of my bed covered in hair from my wonderful mutt of a dog. Slowly, I stumble my way to the door, let the dog out, turn to my right, and press start on a coffee maker filled with Stella Blue medium roast. Now I’m off to take a piss and consider washing my hands or not because my brains been put in a blender over the past week on if it’s the right thing to do. With coffee made, dog fed, and hands washed I head out of the door. (sorry mean girls, you’re wrong)
I’m off to go make sales I could care less for but it gives me all the time necessary to catch up on all of the fresh Monday content. I am a Stoolie. I have a regimen of podcasts to listen to this morning and a 3 hour drive to get caught up. It's no longer a question of “What should I listen to?” because I’ve got the playlist set up: PMT just dropped, two interviews from KFC Radio, and I still have to catch up on last week's Dog walk. This is a regimen formed over years of fandom that seamlessly went from one show I loosely followed, to all I can cram into my peanut sized brain. This isn’t normal behavior, but again I say with pride: I AM A STOOLIE. This isn’t the desired regimen for all because of the plethora of shows offered by Barstool and its platform, but it is part of mine.
I know that’s a long introduction, but I needed you to understand that as a stoolie you’ve reached a new level of fandom. Life as a stoolie seemed lonesome at first but then I saw some kid almost get hired on the YAK.
Though Coleman didn’t pass the test of El Prez, he sure did inspire the rest of us watching from afar, and in my case, eventually in person.
My twitter went from watching and listening to doing my best to interact with those creators and pages I’ve followed for years. I finally was realizing what the hell this is all about. My fandom didn’t stem from the love of sports or from the love of gambling. No, no, no, Johnathon. My fandom grew because there’s an outlet of people who don’t take their selves so seriously and speak their fucking minds. Sure sports led me here but the pure content is what kept me.
Through my twitter reinvention I stumbled across a twitter space some random Wednesday night. Welcome to stoolie Wednesday. 1st time was just a listen to see what it was about and holy hell I couldn’t wait for the next week. This space gives barstool fans a unique opportunity to speak and interact with some of their favorite content creators from all over the barstool conglomerate.
What if no big names show up? Well, that doesn’t matter. Were stoolies, so we catch up on our favorite stool scenes throughout the week, let out a big loud VIVA at the end, and move on.
Suddenly I went from listening to being a weekly speaker. I’m not saying this to suck my own dick, I point this out because its such a unique experience to feel inclusion and ask questions to some of the people I watch/listen to daily. I thought I had reached the pinnacle of being a stoolie, then I was invited to a group chat…
I’m not here to dox any stoolies, so allow me to summarize. Essentially, I realized there’s at least 35 people similar to me. Constantly consuming whatever word vomit barstool has to spew to our puppy perked ears. From memes daily, picking sides on whatever beef is going on, to simply watching The Dozen Wednesday night post show in a discord chat and answering the questions together. For a 28-year-old man sitting on a futon in his living room, Ill be honest, it feels pretty damn nice to have a sense of community. Some of these folks are off their rocker, but hey so am I, and so is everyone at Barstool in their own way. So in a way, unknowingly, Barstool sports is bringing more unique minds together behind the scenes and I’m here for it.
Through my journey as a Stoolie I’ve gained confidence to speak to groups of people, interact with those I look up to, and now write I suppose. Really, I saw John Rich write a blog about a fan, shout out Cheapie13, so I figured a fan should return the favor just in a broader sense because the tungsten photo got blogged about enough.
There’s more to being a stoolie than I have time allotted to write about because Big Cat dropped his head coach blog and I’ve got reading to do, but you get the idea.
Even though I have a shitty day job, I know I’ve always got something to listen to, read, or watch that will help me get through. I truly appreciate the brand Barstool has built and with the changes coming over the next few months I cannot wait to see where it goes. So in the words of the all great Nick Fasoli, VIVA! (insert Fasoli emoji)
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