Wednesday, March 21, 2007

My Argument with a 16 Year-Old

Since its inception last June, I have become a regular reader of and commenter at Mondesi’s House. Another person who comments frequently is a 16 year-old named Adam, who is a Penn State fanatic. Adam’s comments over the past month have been increasingly frustrating as he writes ridiculous things about Penn State’s basketball team such as expecting the team to defeat Ohio State in Columbus even though Penn State lost 11 or 12 straight games and that Penn State looked like a lock for the NIT after starting off 9-4 (with “impressive” wins against UNC-Greensboro, Morgan State, Long Island and Maine and losses against Stony Brook and SE Louisiana). If Adam was just being optimistic, even if delusional, about Penn State hoops, that would be fine by me. I still think the Pirates could be good at the beginning of every season. However, he generally ends each comment attacking Pitt.

For the NCAA Tournament, Mondesi created a tournament group. After I predicted two days before the tournament that VCU would defeat Duke and meet Pitt in the second round, Adam wrote a message directed at me saying that “Coach K is not going to lose to freaking VCU in the NCAA Tournament. Watch some college basketball and get your head out of you Big East Ass” and that Pitt could not beat Duke. After Duke lost, Adam wrote that Duke was only a 2-person team and that VCU was the real deal. Naturally, I called Adam out on the hypocrisy. The response: he called me a moron. I tried to take the high road saying that instead of writing that he was wrong, he instead threw insults my way. That seemed to stop the comments…for about 4 hours. After Pitt defeated VCU to advance to the Sweet 16, Adam started a new rant stating that Pitt fans should not be satisfied by beating two mid-majors and if they lose to UCLA, Dixon should be fired.

This is the point when I stopped. I came to the realization that it’s just not worth arguing with him. Even if I win, all I can say is that you bested a 16-year-old, so I really can't win.

I also realized that it is a good thing I did not have the internet at 16. I could easily have been Adam getting in arguments with fans of the Atlanta Braves or Cleveland Browns.

2 comments:

Rinsem's Rink said...

There is no way you can win in an argument with someone who doesn't understand what they are even talking about. When you said Adam stated that "Penn State looked like a lock for the NIT" - that was all I needed to hear. He lost any credibility he may have had at that point.

People like this are so typical. The fact is, only one team can win the whole thing every year. So if you stand on the sidelines before every game and state how bad Pitt is and they will lose in this game because they suck... eventually you will be right.

Don't waste your time dude - stick with the big boys and have real intelligent discussions.

On a side note - I love Mondesi’s House and I'm also playing in his tourney.

Anonymous said...

Sean, I've realized that a lot of people that post on message boards are ignorant morons. I've become increasingly frustrated with people on other teams message boards and even yahoos that troll our board over the Bonaventure coaching search. I tried to educate people, but it's worthless, because they are always right and I'm a homer. I shouldn't care so much, but I do.