Meet the blogger who took Dallas Stars’ Donald Trump joke viral

The Dallas Stars goofed on the Donald Trump administration on Saturday, which is something that can carry consequences in this political climate. But were it not for Kate Morrison, a baseball blogger in Dallas, the joke never would have seen the light of day.

The Stars used their Jumbotron to mock White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s “alternative facts” about the size of President Trump’s inauguration crowd, claiming that their own attendance was 1.5 million for their game against the Washington Capitals. As we wrote yesterday, the fact they were playing Washington, D.C.’s hockey team had more to do with the joke that partisanship.

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Morrison was pretty much the only fan to get a shot of the fleeting joke. The Stars told us if she hadn’t tweeted it, the goof probably stays in the arena. But she did, and the results were instant and viral: Over 40,000 likes, nearly 20,000 re-tweets and coverage of the image from ESPN to cable news.

We spoke with Morrison, who blogs at Unlikely Fanatic and Baseball Prospectus as a writer and evaluator, about going viral, getting ripped off after going viral, and whether President Trump’s supporters were outraged at her for sharing it.

Enjoy!

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Q – Do you typically take photos of the Jumbotron? What prompted you to snap and tweet this one?

MORRISON: I’m not typically able to get my phone out in time to take a picture of the other excellent jokes there’ve been, but this time I was in the middle of a conversation about the game itself, so when they got to the punchline, I had to take a picture. I didn’t think it was going to go viral like that – I just found it funny, topical, and a double-layered joke about both the current news and, y’know, hockey in Texas, so I put it out there.

Q – The Stars indicated to me that without your image, that probably just stays in the arena. How do you react to that?

I’m surprised that I appear to be the only (or one of the only) person to tweet a picture of it. Somehow or other, a lot of the great Jumbotron jokes end up on Twitter, and I guess this was just my turn.

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Q – Where you at all surprised to see an NHL team in a red state get all political like that?

Well, Dallas itself is fairly “purple” – our mayor is non-partisan, the county voted fairly blue this last election, and while the state of Texas is red, the state of Texas is also huge. The Stars are also one of the snarkier teams in a league full of snarky personalities, so while I wasn’t expecting to see that exact kind of joke, this is also the team that did “Star Wars spoilers” the night that The Force Awakens came out. Nothing’s out of the question.

Q – At what point do you begin to realize that this thing was going viral?

About five minutes after I sent the tweet. I didn’t think it was going to go viral at all – if anything, just my “hockey friends” would get a laugh and the baseball portion of my timeline (I’m a baseball writer by “trade”) would get one step closer to unfollowing me. It was a really weird feeling, looking at my phone and seeing this incredible rush of retweets and comments and quote tweets.

Q – You expressed some frustration with the amount of people and sites just swiping your image with no attribution. So how frustrating was that?

Very frustrating, to be honest. I know it’s going to happen – this is the internet, and people don’t realize that intellectual property rights still exist even if an image (or a story, or some other creative endeavor, or the like) is posted publicly. The funny part of the tweet isn’t mine, sure – it’s the work of Jason Danby (Stars’ Sr. Director of Game Presentation). I just happened to be in the right place in the right time to take a legible picture and put it on social media immediately…but that’s also part of photojournalism or reporting. Just because there’s no inherent value to myself in that image doesn’t mean it’s free for anyone to claim, you know? I paid for the ticket, I paid for parking and food, and I’d feel the same way if anyone else who was in the arena had been in the same position I was.

It’s not even about the likes, or retweets. I’ve got too many of those right now. It’s about the pure morals of the thing.

Q – Did you have interaction with Trump supporters, and if so what was that like? And was there any hesitation in tweeting it, knowing how that can go on social media with Trump backers?

I’ve actually had my mentions set to “only people you know” since about ten minutes after I sent the tweet, so my only interaction has been the one or two times I’ve looked at the replies to the post itself. A few friends of mine have kindly gone through them for me, to alert me to ones I need to know about and reply to, and apparently, per one of my friends, the angriest people aren’t Trump supporters, but Minnesotans. Twenty-three years and they’re still mad!

Q – OK, so how many people actually were at the game?

Well, it wasn’t a sell-out, which isn’t surprising with the lackluster and frustrating play that’s been evident for a good part of the season. It wasn’t horrid, though – you’d have to ask an actual beat for the real number.

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As we reported yesterday, the Stars had yet to hear any reaction from the White House. Spicer had his second press conference with the media, and admitted that the administration’s numbers on transit riders for the Inauguration were incorrect, but didn’t correct the record on his other falsehoods.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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