Women's Soccer Celebrity Picture Deep Dive
Liam (Bubba) of the Pardon My Take podcast tweeted that someone should do a deep dive on this picture. Then Twitter user @swright_33 volunteered me to do it. Liam replied and to him said, "Let's do this John Rich". I respect Liam, so here we are. If anybody at Barstool Sports even hints that I should do something, I'm going to agree to do it immediately. If Mantis told me to do something I probably would. That was an unnecessary shot at Mantis. He sent me a very nice message after Barstool Idol. My point is they could get me to do some really fucked up stuff if they wanted to.
So that's why I'm doing this. The picture is only 3 years old, so at least it's topical.
Did anyone ever explain the premise of this picture? If I remember correctly, it was instantly deleted. I respect when people delete bad tweets. I've been deleting bad tweets for years. I've already done it twice since I started at Barstool.
I tweeted this one a few days ago. I thought it was hilarious. It didn't have as many likes as I anticipated after 30 minutes, so I deleted it. S/o Baby Face Hayes.
Ok onto the picture. I'm not sure what the best way to do this is. I considered doing an acronym for every person, but that would be torture to read. Maybe that can be Part 2. I'll just give some thoughts on each person and call it a deep dive.
- Taylor Swift looks great. I am a bit of a Swifty myself. I know most of the lyrics to the 12 minute version of All Too Well.
- There are a handful of people in this picture who are wearing a suit and I'm not sure why. Will Ferrell is one of them. Is he supposed to be Deangelo Vickers from The Office? Of all the Will Ferrell characters they went with Deangelo Vickers? I actually liked those episodes of The Office. They weren't well received by most people, but I love the scene where him and Michael Scott meet at the bar.
- "You know what I've always wanted to try? Luge"
- "Try it once you're hooked" - that gets a laugh out of me every time. I don't have a very high bar for humor.
- Not much of an opinion on Miley Cyrus. A long time ago, I watched a fake Miley Cyrus porn and thought it was real. I told my friends about it. When they saw how fake it was they lost a lot of respect for me.
- Will Smith appears to be shouting. This picture is from long before he slapped.
- Iron Man is the first fictional person. Captain America seems like he would have been a better choice. I have seen neither of those movies, and probably never will. Unless someone at Barstool tells me to. I'm not a big movie guy.
- The next picture appears to be Tom Cruise from Top Gun. I've never seen Top Gun either, but I think his character's name might be Goose. I will not be fact checking that.
- I think the next woman is Candace Parker. I'm going to fact check that one because I'm afraid it will look bad if I don't know the names of the women. I've confirmed it is Candace Parker. Good for me. I have no beef with Candace. She is a great women's basketball player.
- Definitely had to look up this next woman as well. It's Brie Larson. Never heard that name in my life. Brie Larson is best known for playing a super hero named Carol Danvers. Awful name for a super hero. Maybe the worst I've heard.
- I do know Simone Biles. She is an incredible gymnast. Except for in the last Olympics when she got the spinnys and didn't compete in most of the events. I respected her decision to sit out. It's what was best for her, and in turn what was best for our country.
- Having Baker Mayfield on here is pretty egregious. He's wearing a baseball cap. I zoomed in really far to see if I could figure out what the logo on the hat was, but it was too blurry. Then I found a higher resolution picture and zoomed in on that. Was still too blurry. Then I spent 10 minutes Googling pictures of Baker Mayfield wearing hats trying to find it. No luck there either. There is definitely a football on it, but I can't read the writing. I was hoping I could make something funny out of his hat, but even if I would have found the logo, the payoff probably wouldn't have been that great.
- We are shit at men's soccer if Clint Dempsey made this picture. He might be a good guy, but he's not great at soccer when you compare him to the best players in the world. It is also possible that he is a terrible person. I wouldn't know. Regardless of how he is as a person, he is not exceptionally good at soccer.
- Serena Williams is one of the most dominant athletes of all time. She's maybe the first person that deserves to be in this picture. Whenever I see Serena Williams I get thirsty for milk. Because she was in so many "Got Milk?" ads. Nothing to do with her breasts.
- Billie Jean King is NOT the transgender icon who turned the tennis world upside down when she fought to compete at the Woman's US Open in 1976. You're thinking of Renee Richards. There was a 30 for 30 about her.
- Next is Zach Ertz wearing a fun hat. He's married to a member of the USA Women's Soccer team, so I'm assuming that's why he's in this picture.
- I don't have anything to say about Angelina Jolie. She bores me. I was thinking for second that she rode The Sybian on the Howard Stern Show, but that was actually Carmen Electra.
Next Row: (this is going to be so long I'm sorry)
- When I was a child, I thought Oprah Winfrey was the richest person in the world. My parents must have told me something to make me think that. I remember we were in Chicago once, and they pointed out her apartment to me. I thought it was the whole skyscraper.
- Christian Pulisic is a legitimately good soccer player. I'm pretty sure he's the best American soccer player of all time, unless I'm forgetting someone. Tim Howard is probably the next best. Again, I could be forgetting someone.
- Pulisic is followed by The Cast of Friends. I binged Friends during a very dark period of my life. If you grew up watching Friends and still enjoy it, I understand watching it for nostalgic reasons. But if you're 26 years old and decide that you're going to get deep into Friends for the first time, you're probably not peaking.
- Here is how I rank the cast of Friends
- Joey - funny and likable
- Rachel - hot and likable
- Phoebe - a little too quirky but still overall likeable
- Chandler - too quirky and only likeable at times
- Monica - one of the worst characters in all of television in the early seasons, but she gets better by the end
- Ross - never liked him, never will
- Here is how I rank the cast of Friends
- I always think of Jennifer Lawrence as her character in Silver Linings Playbook. Complete psycho.
- Did you know Sue Bird is not related to Larry Bird? That was news to me. She is also dating a member of the USA Women's Soccer Team. So I guess you make the picture if you're famous, and you're dating a member of the team. You don't have to be that famous though. Sue Bird isn't even rostered in my WNBA Fantasy League.
- I'm over Steve Carrell. The Office was incredible. One of my favorite TV shows of all time. But when you play a character as iconic as Michael Scott, it's kind of hard to be anything else.
- Gaten Matarrazo plays the chubby kid on Stranger Things.
- Sadie Sink plays the older sister of one of the kids on Stranger Things. Her little brother is basically the main character, but he didn't make this picture. Neither did Eleven. I'm sure this was discussed at length when the picture first came out
- Another USA Men's soccer player - Landon Donavan.
- Andy Samberg. Makes no sense, but whatever.
- The first and only country singer who makes the picture is Carrie Underwood. Very talented, very stacked. I like her songs about women committing crimes after being cheated on by their significant others.
- Ok Travis Scott is fun. I was running out of gas there. I love his music. He's dressed way cooler than everyone else in this picture. He just paid for a bunch of funerals of kids who died at his concert due to his negligence. Everyone was telling him that there was a problem with the crowd. They told him he needed to stop the show, but he was like, "No thank you I'm gonna keep raging."
Next row (home stretch)
- Brad Pitt seems like he was probably one of the last ones to make the cut. Just snuck him in on the side there.
- I deleted an extremely offensive Kobe Bryant joke. I was never going to include it. I just wanted to type it out to see how to see how it looked. It looked bad. You can hear it if you subscribe to my Patreon.
- It's funny that Lebron James is the only athlete in uniform. I like Lebron James. I think he's remarkably normal considering he's been super famous since the age of 15. I've had 20k+ followers for 2 weeks and I'm already turning into a nightmare.
- I love Ellen DeGeneres. Not once have I faced any discrimination at the hands of Ellen.
- Not a huge Beyonce fan. Except for her album, Lemonade. I used to do a stand-up bit about hitting on women from my car while blasting Lemonade. It never worked. Maybe got a laugh once or twice. I stuck with it way longer than I should have. I was not a good stand-up comedian.
- I can feel myself getting lazy. I need to come up with something funny soon, but Jay-Z is giving me no inspiration. I'm going to drink 3 Coronas and spam Owen's name in the World Series of Poker live stream.
- I paid $4.99 to write a message that said "Owen" in the chat. Couldn't figure out for the life of me how to type the message, so I just sent blank $4.99 with no message attached. The boys were fired up. It was a great experience. Anyways, this next person looks nothing like Logic. Apparently that's Logic.
- I liked Kendrick Lamar's new album. Not my favorite thing he's done, but still good. I listened to it on vacation so I have good memories associated with it.
- There are so many people in this picture. What am I supposed to do with Zac Efron? Make a short joke? He seems down to earth.
- I hope Justin Beiber is doing ok. Ramsay Hunt Syndrome is scary. It can happen to anyone. I wish I could snap my fingers and have Justin Beiber's tattoos. I would do it in a heartbeat.
- Eight Modern Family Cast Members!? Eight?!?
- Last person is J. Cole. I can't deny that J. Cole makes some great music, but he's always up on his high horse about something. I didn't like when he rapped about losing his virginity. I have a love/hate relationship with him. He's another weird rapper to have on here. Jay-Z was the only one that made sense. They should have just used Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne & Kanye and called it a day. I'm getting mad about Logic now.
Front row (finally)
- Then we have the whole USA Women's Soccer Team. I capitalize USA Women's Soccer Team every time I type it out because I'm afraid of getting cancelled. Some of the Women's Soccer Players have their fists across their chest. They look like they're holding imaginary microphones. I know Megan Rapinoe, Carly Lloyd, Alex Morgan, and Julie Ertz. Hope Solo must not have been on the team anymore. Hope Solo was nuts.
I'm about to move my entire life to New York City, so this is probably my last blog for a few days. Can't wait to be back in the office. I've heard the rule is 10 blogs a day.