These are tough times for Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson. Indeed, he has had a 2011 season that could be charitably described as rocky. He held out of training camp and demanded to become the highest paid running back in the NFL, and the Titans obliged him to the tune of a four-year, 53.5 million dollar contract extension, $30 million of which is guaranteed. So far, Johnson’s return on the Titan’s investment has been dismal. He has rushed for just 302 yards on 107 carries. That equates to a mind-bogglingly low 2.8 yards per rush.
This is terrible news for Tennessee Titan fans, but this is fantastic news for Twitter followers of Chris Johnson.
You see, I’m a massive fan of Twitter feeds that belong to professional athletes. In a world where every celebrity, be they singers, actors, or athletes, are surrounded and rigidly controlled by a battalion of public relations professionals and agents, Twitter is the last glorious vestige for good ol’ fashioned, unfiltered craziness. There are three general types of athlete Twitter feed, though guys usually dip a toe into each category. They are as follows:
The egregiously self-promotional feed. This guy is always pimping his foundation, autograph appearances or the publication of his ghostwritten autobiography.
The overtly sexual/flirtatious feed. These players only see one use for Twitter: as a highly public, cyber-booty call machine. A great example of this: an incident that occurred earlier this year between comedian Joe Mande and NBA falling-star Gilbert Arenas. Arenas’ Twitter profile pictures, instead of photos of him dunking or doing charity work, were crude and juvenile sexual jokes that one would typically see screen-printed onto t-shirts sold on Mexican boardwalks. Mande noted this, and saved the pictures. He then wrote a blog post featuring a voluminous album of Arenas’ hi-larious pics. Arenas and Mande engaged in a heavily one-sided war of words on Twitter and Arenas’ Twitter feed disappeared shortly thereafter.
The other great case study is the ongoing psychosexual train wreck that is Jose Canseco’s Twitter feed. Canseco is the once-great MLB slugger who outed himself as a steroid abuser, then wrote a tell-all book throwing many of his former friends and teammates under the bus for their own drug dabblings. He’s now attempting to rebrand himself as an Mixed Martial Arts fighter. But promoting his fights is only a sliver of the reason he uses Twitter. His main purpose is to address a former lover named Leila. A small taste of the psychosis:
- Sept. 9: I want to apologize to leila for what I said about her .she is a kind and beautiful person who deserves better than me
- Sept. 10: I wish leila and her new boyfriend the best of luck
- Sept. 14: Leila please remove all and any pics you have of me on both ur Facebook pages thank you
- Oct. 12: I love leila shennib more than anything
As of this writing, Jose Canseco has 408,668 followers. I suggest you run, not walk, to become the 408,669th.
The love fest/sparring session feed. Chris Johnson’s feed exemplifies this category. (Though as a long-time fan of his Twitter work, I can say that in happier, more successful days, Mr. Johnson was a bit of a horndog and no stranger to category two. He has truly hit for the crazy-Twitter-feed cycle.)
Johnson goes out of his way to praise his fans, state repeatedly that he won’t pay attention to his haters and critics (despite constantly retweeting their insults and getting into petty screaming matches with them) and shout out love for God, his mother and whoever else crosses his mind as he plays with his iPad on the team bus.
Indeed, his feed is such a window into the psyche of a struggling player that I’ve decided to start a new, weekly feature here at Our Static Age called This Week in Chris Johnson. As I mentioned above, I’m a bit of an aficionado of crazy-athlete Twitter feeds, and Johnson has one of the best out there. It would be a grave disservice not to take a closer look at what he’s doing.
So every week I will pick Johnson’s top five tweets and attempt to analyze what they might mean and what he was trying to accomplish with them. I hope you’re ready for a hearty dose of typo-riddled craziness.
The Tweet: Wishing happy birthday to my mom she was born on halloween
The Analysis: Like most pro athletes, Chris Johnson loves his mom, and makes no secret of it. Regular folks love their parents too, but we pretty much know that you know that we love them. Not Chris Johnson. He needs you to know that. And I love the fact that he had to clarify that she was born on Halloween when he sent that tweet on Halloween. He’s just clearing up any confusion for his followers that might want to send her gifts, that’s all.
The Tweet: People #unfollowed @ChrisJohnson28. When the ship is sinking, the rats are always the first to jump. #Fact (Retweeted from @VaporWolf25)
The Analysis: Once you follow Chris Johnson, you damn well better know you’re in for the long haul. If you have the nerve to unfollow him, you WILL be called out by VaporWolf25. Please believe that. And Chris Johnson won’t defend you. No, you’re dead to him now. (And let’s not throw the “#facts” hashtag around like that, VaporWolf25. I’d like to see some studies.)
The Tweet: Im drug free RT @mattchew_021: @ChrisJohnson28 bro you should get high before the game sunday
The Analysis: It would be downright crazy to think that a guy that looks like this enjoyed smoking a good joint once in a while. Come on. Any guy that goes really far out of his way to emphatically deny a baseless allegation by a stranger on Twitter is always innocent. How dare @mattchew_21 try to drag the good name of Chris Johnson through the mud. It’s a good thing Johnson doesn’t stoop to that level by retweeting guys like that.
The Tweet: The type of things people do these days still seems to amaze me
The Analysis: I’ve always heard good things about the philosophy department and East Carolina University. In a season full of tumult, it’s good to see Johnson stop and have a quiet, introspective moment. It really makes you wonder, doesn’t it? People do sometimes do things these days. Sometimes amazing things.
The Tweet: @ChrisJohnson28 NFL Star Chris Johnson — Threatens Lawsuit Over ‘Dreads on a Stick’ tmz.com/2011/11/05/chr… via@HarveyLevinTMZ (Retweeted from ROCKTOPICS)
The Analysis: That’s right. Chris Johnson retweeted a tweet of a story about himself suing two guys for making a wig based on his haircut and then selling it on the internet. Welcome to the 21st century, everyone.
