#i got the first one on Twitter and went to check the acc's name to give credit but they deleted their acc

[midnightmah07]

Adding the relationship chart for Ruggie and Daisy🩷

[bylrlve]

Warning! Potential Spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5!

Eli (@revolvng_door) on twitter has been posting leaks related to Stranger Things - he claims to get info from his mother’s friend who is on set and is part of the crew watching scenes be filmed. In DMs he’s disclosed unreleased info about the military plot and the children plot to accs tracking spoilers, and thus knowledgeable people are pretty sure he’s accurate.

He privately messaged some byler accounts a few days ago, telling them that he’s been told Will has a love interest - a boy we’ve seen before, who likes him but is not liked romantically by Will yet, and tht it’s not Mike. The confusing thing is that another account on twitter - I won’t disclose the name here - was going around to other people telling them the same information but framing it in a more byler-positivd manner i.e., implying heavily that it is Mike - but it seems that this is incorrect as the news of a new LI for Will has been going around for months, now. Eli then went into a byler twt gc and told everyone, so it spread like crazy:

The confusing thing about this leak is that the description sounds like it should be Mike - but it isn’t? Finn and Noah are together a lot, and I haven’t seen any rumours of previous actors being spotted on set - either of the actors for Troy and James, for one. Nico - danceonth3moon - said it well here:

Worth noting that Ris aka byrhop, a very sensible and rational person who’s a byler but is very neutral on the possibility of it happening, is very pessimistic atm - they’ve been following leaks closely and know quite a bit.

Also might as well note here that Alex is absolutely full of it, and is completely out of the loop atm as a consequence of her own actions:

The only slight crumb of hope for byler is that there is an extended sequence of them at a church due to be filmed over the next month. I was privately told this a while ago and now it’s common knowledge. The church is either in the Upside Down or has been taken over by it - there are religious phrases painted on the property and vines all over it.

Noah Schnapp was very pessimistic about Byler for most of 2023, when he had the first few scripts. “Don’t watch the show just for byler, don’t be mad if it doesn’t happen’, etc. In late 2023 the cast got the scripts for the first six episodes, and in January this year he went on tiktok saying ‘Byler endgame, Byler kiss, you know I ship Byler’ etc - check my Noah Schnapp tag for that clip. This church sequence takes place during episode six - which is when they’d be setting up the endgame for 507 and 508. If there is any hope of byler endgame, I suspect it’ll come through leaks that get out over the next month.

Check out @conflictofthemind’s posts on church gate.

This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

[lexix001]

Like the movies PT 3 TW: death threat Body shamming

This week might be the busy week I've been through, I currently making a new show series, marvel currently on my dms, tonight I also have interview with Jimmy! AGHH

I walk to my closet finding a nice dress for tonight. I also ask my follower to pick which one is the best and they all really love the Classy black dress. Then dms slide in it was?? Mason.

Gorg❤️❤️

He text, ofc it wasnt weird but still it was all too sudden. After what happened, I decide to left it to seen just for another person to slide into my dms again

'Gorg girl ❤️❤️❤️'

It was from Magnolia.

Wanted to left it to seen but it begin to type again.

'Soo I heard you been invited to Jimmy show! Im jealouss. And like since like he says that you can bring someonee Why not bring me? We been friend since forever in the set 😭❤️❤️ '

no cant do I already invite someone.

I reply back.

'Fat cunt, watch the Jimmy audience gonna leave the building bcs of you.'

the fuck was that?? I rolled my eyes and wear the black dress and get ready to the show.

Jimmy show!

"HEYY!" I greet. Also having Louis patridge beside me. I sat on the couch and look at the audience. "I wasnt expect so many people to come" I laugh. "Are you joking?? You're famous y/n" louis rolled his eyes. "So guys! This is y/n and their friend who currently making a new show series and also know as (charater name) from The black phone" Jimmy squeak.

I waved to the audience.

We started to talk about my new series and my personal life. "So y/n do you have ever get bad comment on set?,If so tell us" Louis asked. I smile weakly

"okay so there is the girl who always steal my friend which at first I don't really mind until that afternoon I decide to eat my lunch. Then she and my friend just straight off body shamming me" I vented. "WOA WOA SHE WHAT??" Jimmy yelled

I nodded. "She is blind look how gorgeous you are! ok continue babes" Jimmy say desaprate what happens next.

"Ok so Magnolia was like the queen bee and gets whatever she want" then it went dead silent.

"Magnolia fat shamming you??" Louis asked. Shit. "Since when did I say Magnolia??" I laugh nervously. Jimmy eyes about to pop out hearing the gossip.

I also forgot to put my phone on silent mode making a notification pops out. A thousand time. I quickly check who it was ignoring the fact that Louis gonna see the message too.

It was like a thousand message of Magnolia givinh me death threat at calls me such a name.

'FATSO YOUR GONNA REGRET THAT CUNT'

'I HOPE YOU SLIT YOUR THROAT'

"We got her!" Louis yelled proudly. Taking my phone off my hand and screen shotted it.

What a night. Magnolia and me started to become trending on twitter, google, youtube. mostly her acc was banned she can't really talk shit now. I wonder how is the boys doing..

[therealandian]

got tagged by @voiceless-terror for a thing! :o

1- Why did you choose your url?

well you see, andian is the name of one of my ocs. i started using it when i first got onto social platforms, but when i went to make a twitter acc (iirc), @.andian was already taken, so ‘the real’ got added. used it ever since so people can always find me really i should probably change it esp since andian is a fem character and i am. very much not that. but meh~ it’s what people know me as

2- Any side blogs?

yep! i’m @mslynnwrites, which is a blog specifically for my writing (og and fic). i also attempted an undertale ask blog for a bit, but that’s been over for years.

3- How long have you been on tumblr?

ummmm...i’d have to check according to my blog archive, since march 2016. so A While™

4- Do you have a queue tag?

i tried for a while, but i genuinely queue so many things that i gave up

5- Why did you start your blog in the first place?

undertale.

6- Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

picrew made my life easier and i’m ace that said, i’ve been meaning to change it for a while now

7- Why did you choose your header?

because who doesn’t love pastel space?

8-What’s your post with the most notes?

i have no idea how to check that but it was probably something dumb

9- How many mutuals do you have?

apparently only 8, but honestly there’s plenty of others i’d call mutuals who don’t follow me back

10- How many followers do you have?

more than i’d have expected

11- How many people do you follow?

62

12- Have you ever made a shitpost?

do you really need the answer to that question?

13- How often do you use Tumblr each day?

Way Too Much™

14- Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

not that i recall, but i definitely remember an argument on twitter with this one asshole...

15- How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

no i don’t

16- Do you like tag games?

i like that people think of me to tag me! (so yes)

17- Do you like ask games?

YES PLEASE FLOOD MY ASKBOX IT GIVES ME SEROTONIN

18-Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

tumblr famous is a joke. fandom famous, though, def @welcometogrouchland. there’s plenty of others who don’t follow me back tho (or who follow me with main blogs while i only know their sides)

19- Do you have a crush on a mutual?

wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy

gonna tag @welcometogrouchland, @duskdragon39, @emboldenedbirdbrain, @yamiiino, and @lylahammar

anyone else is welcome to answer as well!

[captryanclark]

24-25 June 2020 // The days Hugh Laurie replied to me 2 times in 24 hours

Here’s the story:  -on the first picture 24th June 2020: someone tweeted about his book The Gun Seller being their current favorite book, then an anon account using Bart Simpson’s pic as pfp said something like “only 3 people read his book”, that’s why he’s saying “oh no, you’re not all three people Bart knows?”  then i wrote him that tweet, in defence of him of course and i wasnt really expecting anything but then his tweet notification came in, i saw him tweeted in Turkish but it wasnt in a “reply”. Twitter glitches sometimes like this or he accidentally hit the wrong reply button when he was trying to write in Turkish. It was so sweet of him and actually enough for me. I never ask for more, i know how to settle with what i’ve got in my life. Btw it’s not a translated version, he probably wrote it as he remembered Turkish, which is very sweet and kind of him. Because that “teşekkür” word is really hard for foreigners so we understand when they say “tessekur” instead. “Teşekkür ederim” means “Thank you!”. And this whole thing was enough to celebrate which i did for that night. But some people kept asking “uh, are you sure he replied to you?” like no he decided to talk in Turkish all of a sudden jfc. i had to explain this to people that day all day. Also i had a very long and shitty day so him doing that boosted my mood so it was all enough for me.

-the other day, on 25th June: i was still in shock of him replying in Turkish the previous night but you know, people gotta live on with their lives so i was living on, at around like 7:25 pm, i started playing the guitar, with my laptop opened, twitter tab was opened, my airpods were on but my phone was somewhere that my eyes cant see it, apparently, 5 mins later i started playing my guitar innocently, this man decided to reply to me properly like under something that i spent 3 days on, 45 hours to make for his birthday 2 WEEKS AGO!! 2 WEEKS AGO!! Man how did you even find that? Maybe he realized he replied under the wrong tweet the other day so he went there and found it. I assume he enjoyed the video cause thanked for the “send-off” haha, BUT HOW DID YOU FIND THAT!!! Some of my friends even saw it before i did and i literally checked my screen like “did he just... did he say this to me? Is this his real acc?? (there’s the fcking white tick) are we sure it’s him?....” once i came to believing that it’s actually him i started “what will i say him now....” it took me 15 mins to write a proper reply to him, and im still not okay with it cause i couldve made a better joke... Whatever happened in his mind and around there, i am so thankful, now i have a story to tell him if i meet him someday. The man i’ve been a fan of since was 16 years old, replied to me TWICE in 24 hours and i’ll forever be celebrating this. I literally wasnt expecting him to say anything or even see that birthday video i edited, he just went to look up my account or idk maybe searched my twitter handle and his own name and this came up, whatever happened, i cannot thank him enough for giving me the energy boost that i needed for a long time. Bless him for thinking of me and making me the happiest person on the planet for 2 days.... And if you now go to his acc on twitter, his last 2 activites were replying to me hahaskjdfhjksdf i feel privilaged hjsdhkasak

I couldnt go to his Istanbul gig in 2014 cause i broke my foot 1 week before that and my doctor strictly banned me from walking for 10 days so i was really upset and angry at myself... you know what... 6 years later, that footache officially healed after all of this... 

Hugh Laurie is a living legend and one of the kindest human beings in this world, i love him with all my heart❤️

[lumukru]

I already posted this on my twitter acc but why not here too:

episode idea: (like 20 years after the village that went mad) the village from the first episode is abandoned, no one is living there anymore. no one wants to because people say it's a hunted place(they're right). only a few ghosts are there, and they're murderous. a group of young people decide to check it out. since the ghosts are angry that they got killed and couldn't continue to live their peaceful(?) life with the other villagers all those years ago.

they decide to try and kill the teens, and the teens are searching for clues for what may have happened in the village and why it's abandoned, since no one knows the story behind the village that went mad. for other people, it's just a name and many have theories why the village is names like that. the ghosts can make themselves on command visible and touchable(?), though they cannot break things(blocks), only pick up items like normal ghosts and even kill people if they want to.

why are the teens at the village? they want to find the answer as to why the village is abandoned and what happened to it. why? maybe they want a cool story to tell other people? get rewarded for solving the mystery? idk anymore, feel free to add more :)

[angrysqash]

Ya'll know the drill on this one

Make sure to check out my twitter @AdotSquash and Insta AngrySquash_ to see the story behind the other two.

....

Anyway, the last ones are these two. I'll make the cat flag quick.

When we were at high school, they had this program called the "Leadership Training" and at that time i was the president of the language club(i stayed in that almost empty club for 4 years: got to secretary to vice to pres for 2 years). It was mandatory to go and damn my patience was tested sooo hard. But it was fun and i got to chill with my officers fam. All the officers from different clubs were scattered tho, so my team or troop is what they called it was Green Cat. We had to make a flag, do team jingles, create a dress from scrap and sit by a bonfire passing notes to each other.

NOW FOR THE MAIN TEA

I'll try my best to make this short.

There was a time in high-school when i got sooooo fccuing jealous of the other gurls having boyfriends and sht. This bijj was falling for guys left and right but never had the courage to actually ask them out B^)

So then i met this guy:

-online

-thru my frens acc (fren said it was their cousin)

-only ever referred to them as S, Sf and Sp

-never seen his actual face

Red flags amerite? Anyway sometimes when the three would stay overnight at my frens house they'd just steal their phone and chat at my frens group chat.

Lets skip a few time lines and i fell for his personality like b r u h i like me some bad boy. Anyway S was my main man, fren said Sam was his real name. But whatever S is what i called him. Soooo my fren which is a arter as well (who is so much fricc i n g better at me and my inspiration to persue artering as well) draw him as well as SF but i didn't want to draw SF in this one cuz S is the main boi.

This went on for a whole semester and obviously i caught on that he wasn't real from the first few days but hey, it was fun liking someone that doesn't exist :'DD

I EVEN MADE A WHOLE ASS SONG ABOUT HIM

But thats for another time to show

The End

Wow thanks a lot for reading my siht memories, check out my twitter(@adotsquash) and Insta(AngrySquash_) to see the rest <3

[yourhockeyboys]

No One But Me

A lovely anon requested “could you please do this imagine you are auston's gf and you're a famous supermodel who is also an angel for vs and you go to one of his games and all eyes are on you?? end it however you like amour”  Anyways, i hope you enjoy it!!

-Cassie

You had done everything your manager had told you to do.  Hat, check. Sunglasses, check.  You didn't even sit with the other WAGs.  You didn't do anything that would get you recognized, you kept it very lowkey.  No twitter, no instagram, no snapchat, no nothing until the game was over.  You could not risk taking the spot light away from the leafs.

In addition to being a world famous super model you also happened to be a VS angel.  Not to mention being a spokesperson for womens rights and equality of all people.  If someone didn't know your name they had probably seen you on an ad somewhere in the media.  You tried to keep a low profile everywhere you went, and sometimes the attention got to be too much but it's the life you chose you couldn't complain.  You also chose the life of dating an extremely famous NHL hockey player so public outings weren't exactly easy.  

You had gone to the washroom during the second intermission, hoping the hoards of people would keep you from being spotted but unfortunately a girl probably 16 had noticed you and asked to take a picture. You couldn't say no, she was so sweet, but you had practically begged her to keep it private until after the game. She had seemed understanding but when you got back to your seat you already had about 20 texts from your manager and several calls from other people on your team.  You just wanted to be nice to a fan.

The intermission was filled with other people coming to your seat and asking for a picture, a conversation or for you to sign something.  The people around you probably wanted you dead but you couldn't say no.  You could only hope that once the period started again that the people would stop, but just before the was about to drop for the third period an all too familiar ad began playing.

"Since when does the ACC run lingerie ads?" you hear some people around you question.  The ad being played just happened to be your first ad as an angel for Victoria's Secret.  It's not that you were ashamed of the ad, in fact far from it, it's just exactly what you didn't want to happen was happening.  

By the time the game was over, with the leafs winning, you had taken more photos than at a meet and greet, and signed so many autographs you thought your hand was going to fall off.  You didn't even want to go downstairs to wet for Auston, you didn't want to have to deal with the looks from the rest of the people waiting for their boy but when the rest of the girls found you, you could say no.

The entire way down all you heard about from them was how great you looked in the ad.  You continuously tried to deny it, it was heavily photo shopped- much to your dismay- and plus you wanted to talk about how great the boys played.  

"(y/n)!" You hear Willy yell as he exits the change room "no wonder Aus keeps you inside so much, with a body like that..."

As soon as you were about to deny his comment Auston shoves past you and Willy with a look that could kill. "You've got a handful tonight, they say angry sex is the best sex" Steph says nudging your side.

You let out a loud sigh and say bye to the rest of the girls and making your way to the car where Auston already had it started and ready to go.  The ride back to his apartment was full of tension you probably couldn't even cut it with a knife.  Once you got to his apartment it wasn't any different.  He kicked off his shoes and dropped his jacket behind him with you picking both up.  

"Aus I tried not be noticed" you say following behind him "it's not my fault i had to pee and someone saw me."

With no response you continue following him into his bedroom "Aus I'm sorry it happened but you can't be mad at me for being nice to my fans, you know just as well how it is."

Just as you were about to respond Auston turns around and in two quick strides he's across the room and pinning you against the wall.  "Baby i'm not mad that your were being good to your fans, I'm mad that everyone in that goddamn arena got to see how beautiful you are.  No one should see you like that, no one but me."

It's safe to say Steph was so right when she said angry sex was the best sex.  

[nrjacobs-blog]

First post! The post that hurts the most.

So, this is my first post. I made this page so people could follow my footsteps for anyone who is interested in my journey from bum to someone.

I recently broke up with my girlfriend of quite some time. This isn’t really supposed to be a sob fest but the breakup was pretty bad. I had to leave the home we shared together in London. I had to quit my job (for reasons I won’t get into here!) and obviously worst of all, I lost the person I love and my best friend. You can’t really explain what it’s like to go from talking to someone everyday for the last 5 years to having no contact with them at all. It’s quite something I have to say and I don’t wish anyone through it.

So this leads me up to where we are at. I’m unemployed, homeless, and needing direction. This blog is as much as anything an open discussion regarding depression. Something that unfortunately I’ve suffered with for a number of years and I fear may have hastened the demise of my relationship.

My key aim is to show how, hopefully, with a plan and some direction anyone out there who feels lost or alone or sad can push themselves. I’m really trying to steer away from this being a cheesy, feel good thing with loads of montages of me running up staircases in the rain to an 80s sound track. Life isn’t all sunshine and farts and I’m very aware of this. I’ve been that guy who has just given up. Lying in bed for days, weeks. Fluctuating weight. No drive. No interest in my own wellbeing or safety. I’m no saint. I can’t lie and say this was something I convinced myself to do easily. I didn’t. I spent a good month after the breakup basically not living and simply passing time. I didn’t have an interest in having “another go at it” as everyone told me I should.

So as much as anything it’s a blog for family and friends and like minded people to try and keep me on track. Encourage. And also to help those who feel as alone as I feel sometimes. Let’s push forward together and see what we can do, eh?

At this current stage it’s Wednesday the 31st of May, 00:41 hours and I’m at my Dad and step-mums house in the village of Westonzoyland. Came here on Friday night so we could go to a gig together on the Sunday in the nearest town of Bridgwater. It’s a special place is ‘Bridgy’. You notice there is no 'E’ in the word Bridgwater and I notice there about 2 or 3 chromosomes too many in the people who frequent the town.

On the Sunday we went to said gig. It was good to see some live music. I’m a musician myself so I do enjoy a good live band. Maybe one day I’ll play you a song on here? (I won’t play you a song on here)

At the gig I met a girl working behind the bar. She was stunning! Blonde hair, no makeup on at all. Her skin was porcelain and had no imperfections. She wore dark red lipstick to accentuate her skin tone and her eyes were deep and blue. Huge eyelashes! Sorta eyes you lose a summer in as Morgan Freeman might say. Sounds better if you read that last line in a Morgan Freeman voice and pretend you’re in jail.

But anyway. Part of the new me I decided if, when we leave, I find myself one on one with this girl I’m going to ask for her phone number and tell her how beautiful she is. As we left the bar I knew she was outside and deep down I wanted her to be with someone to spare my blushes. She was alone…

So I waited and waited and then when I couldn’t wait any longer I finally drew the courage to speak to her. I approached her and said “This is a strange one and not something I’ve done before, but I just think you’re so beautiful. Do you think it wouldn’t be too rude of me to ask for your phone number?”

To my dismay she said yes! I handed her my phone and she proceeded to enter in the digits. She then said “You’re very brave” Winked and walked off back into the bar. I checked the number and it was, at first glance, legit. The right amount of digits. I saved the number. 'Rachel’ was her name or at least what she said it was in my contacts.

I text her that night. Giving her my name and apologising again for how I approached her. We text most of the evening until I fell asleep. In the morning I awoke to a text message from her explaining that she had tried to look me up on Facebook, twitter and instagram and her search had come back blank. I told her this was because I had no social media as I didn’t really believe it was healthy or natural. Something I’ve always thought ever since I had a MySpace page and felt like I was sat up for hours on end stalking a girl I was seeing at the time as she would go radio silent for chunks of time. I didn’t like the way it made me act so I deleted it, ended it with her and swore off it for life.

And from here on in the conversation slowly tailed off. She asked me to get snapchat. I politely declined. She asked me how she could trust me when I had no digital foot print online. I told her most of the internet is basically a who’s who of dirty old boys hiding behind avatars online, pretending to be sexy 16 year olds and pop stars (my god kids are getting sexier) and surely meeting me in person and asking me what she couldn’t find out online would be safer as she can see who I really am.

I was blocked today on iMessage and WhatsApp at 15.31 hours.

And the reason it seems was because I like my privacy and wish more people would appreciate theirs. I didn’t want to send her pictures of my head or what I’m about to eat. Or a meme of some kid doing a thing while holding a thing. And that was enough to deem me undateable. A really strange situation to find yourself in and, if I’m honest, one that made me quite depressed and low for most of the evening. I know I’d only met her once and if I hadn’t of asked for her number you never would of known what could of happened. But unfortunately not knowing anything in this instance is better than knowing something. Which seems so often the case these days.

Alas, depression still hanging heavy like a dulling wine I have to look to the next few days to keep my spirit up. I have been staying with my friend, Jane, since I returned to the southwest of England and it’s been fantastic seeing her again after too long without her. Unfortunately finding work in the area she lives is hard especially when you have no money to start with and this means I’m on the move again.

Tomorrow afternoon I move into my new home for the next few months with my Brother and his girlfriend. I can’t explain to you how excited and grateful I am for them allowing me the chance. It gets me closer to work opportunities and closer to good friends, and most importantly it gets me closer to them and makes me feel safe. And I cant stress enough how when you suffer from depression knowing that you’re safe and there are people you can talk to, or even just sit in silence with, can change your whole mindset for the better.

Ahhhh thank you, Jane! I will see you over the next few weekends to cook for you!

Finally, the main part of the blog. The direction part. When I got back to the southwest I sat at my mums house the first few days and had a good hard look at myself. I’ve never really done anything I wanted to do. Always changing my mind at the last second or encountering shit luck or playing it safe. I thought to myself “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I don’t want to be the guy coming home back to his mum and his dad with his tail between his legs and them thinking here we go again.

So I decided I was going to follow a dream I always had as a kid. To join the forces. I didn’t mind who it was, Army, Navy, the RAF; I was going to pick myself up off the floor, get fit and get out of here and do something meaningful with my life.

At this stage my applications are in with all three. The Army have got back to me and I’ve been sponsored to the Taunton ACC to have interviews, hopefully about going in as an officer. But if not I’ll be a grunt. I’m not choosey. I also finalised my RAF application to try and become a weapons operator working on aircraft. This has only just been submitted but I’ll keep you posted!

Sorry this was such a long one. It won’t happen again. But do check back to see my progress and hopefully have a good larf and some serious chats.

Love love Nicholas

[joshriku]

check-in tag :) thank you @shawoluvs for tagging me i love these things sm <3

why did you choose your url?

so real funny story, i like twewy joshua and i like kh riku, can't make up my mind about who i like more between them so i was like "ill jsut make an username with both of their names but surely someone else has already took it" but it was free!

do you have any sideblogs?

nah im so sorry i cant make sideblogs. i am messy and keep everything in one place. at least here it's tagged so anyone can mute but me on twitter is a mess <3 have considered making a marvel sideblog tho jsut to talk about everything i like and make long posts gushing tbh

how long have you been on tumblr?

2013... like..march 2013? i just remade many times. every time i feel like deleting social media i delete my tumblr so this is like my 3rd blog or smth but LOL been here too long <3

do you have a queue tag?

nope i either dont come online for 2 weeks or come online reblog everything and leave

why did you start your blog in the first place?

so the first time it was on 2013 and it was bc i really liked kh and twewy and i saw the fandom was active, so i wanted to be here, then i got really into percy jackson so i also needed to share my every thought again, then i got into youtubers, so i was like ok, time to continue then, then i got tired of that so i remade and kept posting khtwewy+videogames esp ffxv then i got into exo and went right back to marvel and comicbooks and anime and then i got tired of That acc so i remade AGAIN just because..i love talking on the tags <3 personal ted talks to myself bro...

why did you choose this profile picture?

jay liverpepper drew me this for my birthday ..dont remember what birthday but it means a lot to me :]

why did you choose this header?

i don thtink i have a header . this is the first time i log in on tumblr desktop since 2018 . i have not made a theme or something pretty i am just like I like the Site where i can Talk on Tags.

whats your post with the most notes?

i don't have this blog anymore but it's definitely this one,,, 31k.........i posted that on 2013.. EIGHT YEARS AGO..... OOMF WAS CRAZY

how many mutuals do you have?

god. MAYBE 5. I DONT REALLY TALK HERE BUT I REALLY LOVE ALL THOSE MUTUALS I HAVE LIKE I FEEL IT'S SO SPECIAL.........U FOLLOWED ME ? I DON'T SAY SHIT . DON'T MAKE ORIGINAL PSOTS. I AM FLATTERED ?! if anyone ever hamrs my mutuals here i will personally deal with them. i love them . thanks for seeing me post the same shit every day and not unf

how many followers do you have?

64. need 5 more so i can be satisfied

how many people do you follow?

163 (: need more blogs to follow..

have you ever made a shitpost?

nope...but my twitter is basically if shitposting was a person. follow me on twitter dot com slash joshriku (jk no i cant shut up there)

how often do you use tumblr?

like daily..i finish watching something im like I must consume it now via gifsets and have a breakdown when i write my tags

have you ever had an argument or a fight with another blog?

no but in 2015 i had this snape hate club that definitely got me a lot of anon hate. what was going on w me on 2015. like mood but i was like 13

how do you feel about “you have to reblog this” posts?

unless they're boosts post i get annoyed lol...........don't tell me what to do........

do you like tag games?

my brain is basically one big tag game so yes

do you like ask games?

yes i don't reblog them for obvious reasons but if anyone reblogs them im like (zyooms) (turns on anon) ASKS

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

honestly probably all of them . maëlle's pretty famous isn't she........love her

do you have any crushes on any mutuals?

im sorry god i'm literally the someone new song i fall in love just a little bit every day w someone new...........jk i ahve no serious crushes i just go :) op is neat

who do i tag in these things.....i don't talk to anyone god i'm SORRY. @floralbfs @mastroiannisgf @aqua-phoric @thetwilightroadtonightfall i'm so sorry for tagging you i love yo u all.

[podcastcoach]

New Ideas - Lead To New Facts - Lead to New Actions

The Essential Items For Your Podcast Website

Let me state, that this has nothing to do with Wordpress vs Wix vs Squarespace. These are the items that I feel should be on your website (and why)

A Play Button

Think of this as a free sample. If someone is going to subscribe to your show, they need to hear it first. This is why there is a guy with the chicken on a toothpick at the mall. It is the teaser, the free sample of your podcast with no commitment to buy.

A Contact Button/Page

I'm not making this up. I just read an article in Pod to Pod, and I read a story about a podcaster that might have a good "Because of My Podcast" story. There wasn't any contact button at the top, bottom, left, or right side of the screen. It wasn't on the about page, it wasn't there. The only way to contact the person was via twitter. Being somewhat of a geek, I pulled up his RSS feed and dug through the code to find it. Realize, nobody is going to dig through your RSS feed to get your email address. Make your contact button easy to find, and don't get cute and name it something like "Let's get coffee." Be sure to test your button/page to make sure you get the messages from your website.

Your About Page

There are two answers here. If your website is primarily the home of your podcast then the first paragraph should be about the show. If your website is the home of your brand (products, press, etc) then the first paragraph should be about the host. Then a second paragraph about the show. In my travels, the about page is one of the pages that receive the most traffic. If you've been podcasting for a bit and have some reviews, take some of the phrases used by your audience and use it in your about page (use the native tongue of your audience).

Subscribe Buttons

We all love to talk about iTunes/Apple Podcasts, as we should. They have a huge amount of the market. There are android phones as well and it's a bit of a chicken or the egg. More podcasts are consumed on Apple products than Android. Well, most podcasters talk about subscribing on Apple products (and leave the android people out to dry). If Google would get off their butt and make a native app for podcast listeners that would be great (they did just purchase the 60 db app). So make sure people can subscribe to your show. You REALLY want to avoid telling people to "Find me in iTunes."

Extra Credit

Don't just make a subscribe page, but add directions with screenshots. You could even do a quick presentation on YouTube Live on how to subscribe to your show, and then send people to the video on YouTube.

There is more power in subscriptions than reviews.

Because Of My Podcast Scott Orr  is Going to the Movies for Free

Scott Orr does the Code 3 Podcast and was approached by the people behind the new movie Only the Brave. Check out Scott's podcast for Firemen at code3podcast.com

Not sure what is up with Scott's voice? Check out the first 30 seconds of his show at code3podcast.com

Always Be Open For New Input

I've heard reports from one person or another. Anything on the internet that is repeated enough becomes an undeniable fact. With this in mind, I always stay open to new feedback. I always consider the source and always allow new ideas to challenge my beliefs. If I'm going to believe something, it is typically based on things I believe to be facts. Beliefs are based on input and your ideas and feelings (your feelings can skew the input).

Actions are based on beliefs. Beliefs are based on perceived facts. Facts are based on input into your brain. For example, I don't like coconut. Any candy bar with coconut, I'm not a fan. The one day someone handed me a drink. I wasn't sure what it was, it was supposed to some drink better than soda. It was white. It turned out it was some sort of vanilla coconut mix. I have input. I now can say, I don't like something that is predominantly coconut, but I don't mind it mixed with vanilla. You have to be open to someone challenging a belief (I don't like coconut) and taking a look at the other side of the story (having a sip). Then allowing that information to influence your beliefs, which then influence your actions.

New and Noteworthy Insights

I've been begging people to share their before and after numbers if they got into New and Noteworthy and that is just what Matthew McClain did on this post about downloads from Apple

He states before being on the Front Page of New and Noteworthy, "In this period we had an average of 71 downloads per day." This is with two episodes (36 downloads per episode - DPE)

On their first day, the traffic went, "from 26 total downloads the day before (our lowest day ever) to 241." (122 DPE)

He does say, "We released episode two on the 8th which pretty much doubled the recent total downloads to 1,447" (so he now had three episodes counting his trailer) (482DPE)

One day they reached 1,928 downloads for the day (1928/3 = 642 DPE)

He states, " At the time of writing, episode one has 6,978 downloads, episode two 6,161, and episode three 2,295. So 37% of listeners followed the podcast from episode two to episode three.

According to VP of Podcast Relations Rob Walch when it comes to iTunes/Apple Podcasts rankings, "“100% about the total number of new subscribers in the past 7 days, with a weighted average for the last 24, 48, and 72 hours”

Things to Consider

This was on the FRONT PAGE of iTunes/Apple Podcasts  New and Noteworthy (not a category)

Their genre may fit a wider audience than yours.

If you don't make New and Noteworthy, your life is not over. iTunes/Apple Podcasts is a directory, a phone book if you will. It is a central location where people can put in the full name of your show and do a search.

Plays From Your Website Add Up

Ravi Jayagopal (the man behind Digital Access Pass, and the Cool Cast Player along with being the host of the Subscribe Me show sent a link to a post. Last week I mentioned how there are a ton of players out there, but the majority of downloads come via mobile devices. In his post, he pointed out that:

A player on a website is more suitable for "introducing" someone to your podcast - not necessarily for long-term consumption. Introduce on your site, lead them to subscribe on a mobile app on your actual show. Promote your website to cold and luke-warm traffic, like ad traffic and social-spraying content marketing, so you can cookie/pixel them for later retargeting, promote your brand, show them your face, maybe connect with them with a personable video, offer them your lead-magnet and get them to maybe give your their email id, etc etc. But once they're on your list, promote Apple Podcast and Stitcher and Google Play links to those already on your "list", because they don't need to be "convinced" or "converted" anymore about the value that you provide.

Here is a link to the Facebook Post.

He shows how he is getting thousands of new plays on different websites.

Launching Your Podcast With a Massive Amounts of Downloads

Most good ideas are not a single thought. A single idea comes up, and someone says, "You know what else, you might try this..." I always want people to know that:

When you launch with more than one episode, the additional episodes do not download automatically.

New and Noteworthy will not deliver you 10,0000 downloads per episode (if that is the goal)

While you should focus on generating buzz when you launch, a podcast is a marathon and not a sprint.

Some Reasons Why You Might Not Want to Launch with a Ton (25) New Episodes

If you record 25 episodes and find out at episode two that people hate your super jumbo deluxe lightning round, they have to sit through 23 episodes (unless you go back and edit them) until you put out a "new" episode with the changes.

You might pre-fade. What I mean by this is you never make it to episode 25 because you aren't seeing the downloads, getting any feedback, and so you quit before you ever launch.

People will need to go and download your earlier episodes. By default, they will download your latest episode, and then manually download 1-24.

Some Reasons Why Might Want to Launch with 25

You maybe have found your voice by episode 25, and with episode 26 you sound more confident, organized and professional. Maybe it's not such a bad idea.

If you can't come up with 25 episodes, maybe you shouldn't be podcasting?

A Compromise on Launching Your Podcast with 25 Episodes

Instead of putting all your 25 episodes out at the same time, release your episodes (one at a time) to your website, and to your feed. However, don't submit your show to any directories like iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play music just yet. You can tell your friends if you want, but any traffic will come from people searching for your content via search engines. You might also use Facebook to assemble a "Focus Group" and ask people for feed.

This way you can get feedback as you are creating it. When you get to a certain number where you feel confident your show will have a positive impact on your target audience, submit it to the directories, sound out an email blast, tell your friends, family, and neighbors, and do your "launch."

Questions Of The Month

I have two questions for you to chime in on.

What will you be doing differently in 2018 with your podcast? (please answer by 11/20 put "2018" in the subject line to  email dave"at" schoolofpodcasting.com). This will be used the last week of November

What is your ONE favorite podcast and WHY? (please email that by 11/20 with the email subject line "my favorite podcast is 2017").This will be used in our Year End "My favorite Podcast is" episode. 

Podcasting in Six Weeks Starts in January 2018

This will be a live group coaching session. If you're interested (more information next week) get on the waiting list at startapodcastinsixweeks.com 

Ready To Plan, Launch and Grow Your Podcast Now?

Join the School of Podcasting risk-free with a 30-day money back guarantee

Get Immediate Access:

16 courses you help you plan, launch and grow your podcast

Private Facebook Grou

Priority Email Support

Live Group Coaching Calls (Twice a month) 

Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/start

  Check out this episode!

[junker-town]

How Gonzaga became America’s most polarizing college basketball program

In just two decades, Gonzaga has made the seemingly impossible transition from lovable Cinderella to America’s most disliked and distrusted powerhouse.

Eighteen years ago this month, Gonzaga became America’s most popular college basketball team. Making just its second NCAA tournament appearance in program history, an undersized Bulldog team led by junior guards Richie Frahm and Matt Santangelo made Gonzaga a household name for the first time.

The Zags opened up their tournament run with a 12-point romp over Clem Haskins and Minnesota, an at-large bid recipient from the mighty Big Ten. They then completely shook up the entire West Region with an 82-74 triumph over second-seeded Stanford. A victory over Florida to kick off the tournament’s second weekend had Gonzaga in a previously unthinkable position: One win away from the Final Four.

For the next 48 hours, network news shows and national radio stations ran the requisite stories about average people not even knowing where Gonzaga was and about the school’s website crashing from the increased interest their basketball team’s run had garnered the school as a whole. Standard March Cinderella stuff.

Even after falling to eventual champion Connecticut in a hard-fought 67-62 West Regional final, Gonzaga had established itself as an American favorite. A name the country would remember and would keep an eye out for the next time March rolled around. In the caste system of big-time college athletics, that’s the most a mid- or low-major college hoops program could ever hope for.

Then a weird thing started to happen. Gonzaga was back the next year. The year after that, too. And the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that.

Suddenly, the Bulldogs were every bit as much of a March fixture as Duke. But it wasn’t just March. Gonzaga was scheduling major-conference opponents and playing in big early-season tournaments in November and December, and they were winning. They were winning a lot.

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Mark Few — who had taken over the year after Gonzaga’s initial Elite Eight run after Dan Monson ironically bolted for Minnesota — had somehow taken a program from the lowly West Coast Conference and turned it into a perennial national player. This, like the Zags’ original run, was cool with America. A new name on the national scene, and one with humble beginnings and a much taller annual wall to climb than the established powerhouses. How could it not be cool?

At some point between then and now, a change happened. Gonzaga went from irrefutably cool to the program everybody outside of Spokane loves to hate.

Now a change that extreme and that complete couldn’t possibly happen overnight. It has to be a layered situation with a genesis that’s hard to pinpoint.

There’s no way to know for certain, but the best guess for when Gonzaga’s heel turn began lies in the final minutes of a game played on March 24, 2006. The date might not ring an immediate bell for you, but the game will.

Led by national Player of the Year candidate Adam Morrison, Gonzaga had earned a No. 3 seed for the 2006 big dance. Such a lofty taking-off point had become old hat for the Bulldogs by this point. They had been a No. 2 seed in 2004 and a No. 3 seed the year after that, both times failing to make it out of the tournament’s second round. The 2006 squad had already eclipsed those trips by making it to the Sweet 16, and appeared destined to play further into the tournament’s second weekend.

From the opening tip on, Gonzaga had dominated second-seeded UCLA on that night. The Zags led by as many as 17 in the first half and had fans across the country talking about them officially “not being a mid-major anymore.” With a little over three minutes to play, the Bulldogs held a 71-62 advantage. They had shown no signs over the course of the previous 37 minutes that such a lead could be squandered. They would not score again.

In the game’s final minute, Gonzaga finally looked like the program from the bottom of college basketball’s totem pole facing the one with 11 national championships. They missed free throws, they threw the ball away, and they gave up uncontested lay-ups. UCLA scored the game’s final 11 points, the Bulldogs lost, and Morrison cried on the court. I’m sure you remember it well.

Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

Even though the team hadn’t played to its seed in each of the previous two years, this was the first time America really felt like it had been taken by the Zags. This wasn’t the country being let down by Gonzaga the scrappy underachiever whose winning would stun everybody. This was America being let down by Gonzaga the established top-25 program that shouldn’t be completely unraveling in the final minutes of Sweet 16 games.

It was more difficult to notice afterward, but the transition continued to unfold after ’06.

Gonzaga continued to make the tournament every year, but most of the time they were seeded somewhere between 7-11. Sometimes they won a game or two, sometimes they didn’t. Like a middle-of-the-road Eastern Conference team in an era of NBA superpowers, the Bulldogs were just sort of there.

Then, the 2012-13 season happened. Gonzaga navigated through a strong non-conference schedule with just two losses, rolled to a perfect record in the West Coast Conference’s regular season, and claimed the conference’s tournament title. On Selection Sunday, the Bulldogs were given a No. 1 seed in a West Region that the public agreed appeared to be the worst of the four the Selection Committee had put together. It was time for Mark Few’s team to finally cash in and make the world a believer again.

The Zags were stunned by ninth-seeded Wichita State in the second round.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Never mind that Wichita State would go on to win the West Region and give eventual national champion Louisville its biggest scare of the tournament, this was a betrayal on Gonzaga’s part that confirmed the party lines of the program’s many detractors. The perceived success of the Bulldogs was the product of a weak conference and little else. This was a program that wouldn’t be able to hack it for 10 consecutive weeks in the ACC or the Big Ten or any other power conference with depth beyond its three best teams. This was no longer a hypothesis, this was a fact. The proof lay in March.

A trip to the Elite Eight in 2015 and a surprise run to the Sweet 16 as an 11 seed the year after that did nothing to shake the nation’s new perception of Gonzaga. The transformation from lovable upstart to perpetually underachieving paper tiger had been completed.

For the past four months on social media, the mere mention of two things has been guaranteed to elicit an immediate and extreme response: The President of the United States of America, and Gonzaga basketball. Somehow, in a season where Duke has fielded perhaps its most controversial player since Christian Laettner, it’s been a West Coast team from a low-major conference that has born the brunt of America’s disdain.

The Zags are the nation’s lone undefeated team? They’re still a joke. Mark Few has power-conference transfers that make this team look and play more like a power conference team than ever before? Don’t wanna hear it. The Bulldogs are going to be a No. 1 seed and they deserve to be? Whatever, they’ll be out in the Sweet 16 or earlier, that’s a guarantee.

This is where Gonzaga is, and where it’s destined to remain until it finally breaks through and plays its way to a Final Four. Never mind that the Bulldogs are about to participate in their 18th consecutive NCAA tournament, never mind that they’ve won at least one game in the dance eight straight times (the longest streak in the country), never mind that they’ve actually played to or above their tournament seed in 12 of their 17 March Madness runs. None of this matters. In the public’s eye, Gonzaga is little more than an example of how easy it is to find consistent success in a low-major conference, and a product of the media that loves to overhype them every chance they get.

But is there something to that second point?

Based on the accomplishments laid out earlier, Gonzaga is obviously a worthy recipient for praise. But is the media overplaying its hand when it speculates that the Zags would win the ACC or when it pegs the team as the most likely of any to cut down the nets at the end of the season? It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

College basketball is a tough sport to cover. There are 351 Division I teams, which means if you want to check out one at any given time, you’re probably missing out on the chance to watch at least 50 others. The American public has little desire to stay up until 1 a.m. (on the East Coast) just to watch Gonzaga play Pacific on ESPN2 in order to establish a more educated opinion on the merits of the Bulldogs as a national title contender. College hoops media members do.

Any media member who’s written anything on Gonzaga this season has immediately been hit with a dozen variations of “they’re overrated/we hear this every year/they’re going to lose early in the tournament” on Twitter. For the people who put significant time and effort into establishing the basis for the story they just wrote, this is like a math teacher being handed the answer to a complex equation with no work being shown.

Yeah, your answer may have some merit, but tell me how you got there. I know your road wasn’t fueled by as much effort as mine was.

With this phenomenon consistently at work, it’s possible that frustrated college basketball writers have at times gone over the top with their responses. If you like a song and someone gives you a well thought out reason why they don’t, you’re probably going to be okay with it and recognize that there’s some validity to the counter-argument. If you like a song and someone tells you bluntly that it’s the “biggest piece of crap ever,” you might be more inclined to come back with a list of reasons why it’s actually “the greatest song ever.”

All of these factors come together to make Gonzaga maybe the most fascinating program in college basketball right now. Somehow, a tiny program with virtually no history before the start of the 21st century has situated itself right next to Duke and Kentucky on the top of America’s college basketball hit list.

Could this course be reversed? Absolutely. All Gonzaga needs to do is do what every major sports figure or team that has been loved, then hated, then loved again did: Win.

LeBron James didn’t win back a segment of the American public after his “The Decision” debacle until he captured his first championship. It’s easy to forget that the Patriots were at the center of a “do we overrate them as a franchise” discussion before they won their first Super Bowl in a decade in 2014.

If Gonzaga holds true to its seed this month, wins the West Region, and plays in the Final Four in Phoenix, the story will circle around to where it was 18 years ago. The college basketball world will both remember and recognize how remarkable it is for the Bulldogs to be in the position they are.

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

No low major program has ever broken through like this. And to be able to maintain that status, and keep its head coach, for two decades? Unbelievable! One of the best stories to come out of any major American sport.

If an early exit occurs, or even if Gonzaga falls to Arizona in an Elite 8 game where it would likely be an underdog, I don’t need to tell you what the response will be. It’s extreme, it’s indolent, and it’s unfair, but it’s life as America’s most polarizing college basketball program.

[madpicks]

New Post has been published on https://www.madpicks.com/sports/ncaab/like-college-basketball-mascot-march-madness/

What it's like to be a college basketball mascot during March Madness

BROOKLYN, NY — Otto wasn’t having a good game. Maybe that’s because Otto is an orange, and oranges aren’t typically great at basketball. But the other plush, anthropomorphized animals and oversized, plastic humans weren’t faring any better. Gripping a ball is hard when your hands are covered in furry gloves and you can’t see well.

Hardly any of the shots the mascots attempted went in. They looked like little kids trying to trick-or-treat in Halloween masks that severely limit peripheral vision. Rameses, a big-horned sheep in a jersey that serves as UNC’s mascot, was probably the best one on the court. And even he couldn’t reach his arms high enough above his head to achieve the proper form for a layup. His horns got in the way.

Eventually Otto gave up and just hung around near halfcourt. It pulled its arms into its suit and did its signature spin, whirling the fuzzy orb in frenzied circles around its torso. It jumped up and down, moving definitively so that even fans in the nosebleeds could see its large gestures, and ran in circles as Ramses and the other players kept trying to make baskets.

Wednesday’s mascot basketball game at the Barclays Center was limited to the length of the Duke-Clemson halftime, so it soon came to an end, as did Otto’s time at the ACC Tournament. Syracuse had lost earlier that day in the second round, which meant the mascot basketball game was the gender-neutral blob’s final appearance that week.

Otto and Ramses will be back next season. But Isaac Clark and Stephen Jones, the students inside the suits this year, won’t be. They’re both seniors, and when they graduate from Syracuse and UNC in a few months, they’ll graduate from being Otto and Rameses, too. The suits transform them into these characters and turn them into the very spirit of their schools. They make them at once selfless and bigger than themselves.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRb-fpXF308/

Athletes rely on their individuality; if all goes exceptionally well, some of the basketball players who Otto and Rameses cheered on will someday be in the NBA and have sneakers named after them. While the players represent the part, Isaac and Stephen represent the whole. They and the athletes will age out, but the mascots they play — recognizable entities that generations of fans know and love — won’t. For the students who play Otto and Rameses, the characters are as much inside them as they are inside the physical costumes.

“It’s about putting the suit on,” Isaac said in the media dining room on Wednesday before the mascot halftime show after his team’s loss to Miami. He was sweaty and hungry, scarfing down a hot dog as he told me how seriously he takes his role.

“That’s the click,” he continued. “As soon as it hits your head, you’re Otto. I’m not Isaac anymore. I don’t talk when I’m in-suit. I don’t do anything Otto wouldn’t do. I didn’t become Otto to become a mascot. I became Otto to become Otto.”

“I didn’t become Otto to become a mascot. I became Otto to become Otto.”

Isaac is relentlessly positive. His earnestness is almost suspect; how can someone care so much about something that he doesn’t get credit for? But Isaac loved the secrecy. He spent years making up excuses for early morning workouts and coming up with elaborate stories about how he knew the cheerleaders (“we’d say we had some classes together”) and why he happened to be in the tunnel before games. (“I’d tell people I was helping out with the athletics department marketing.”)

He only agreed to use his name for this article because his identity had been revealed at Syracuse’s last home game of the season, the Saturday before the ACC Tournament. After it was announced, his phone blew up. Friends couldn’t believe he’d been Otto all that time.

But Isaac didn’t revel in his big moment; instead, he misses the anonymity. During his whole career, only three people, besides the rest of the spirit team and his parents, knew he was inside the plush orange costume with the foam hat.

Courtesy Isaac Clark

Isaac Clark with his family on senior night after his identity was revealed.

“The reason I did the reveal was for my family, for my parents,” he said. “The recognition perspective was for them and my grandparents, who didn’t know I was Otto. But if I could go back, I honestly don’t know if I’d do it. It’s not important for me to be recognized as Otto. It’s all about S.U.”

Stephen, the UNC student who gives life to Rameses, was recently unmasked at senior night, too. But he said no one really paid attention — it wasn’t as produced as Syracuse’s reveal. In fact, the student inside the Rameses suit isn’t actually named Stephen Jones. He was still clinging to the shreds of anonymity he had left, and he didn’t want me using his real name.

“You get to put yourself out there without people actually knowing it’s you.”

Stephen and Isaac are soft-spoken and businesslike. Both wore their requisite spirit team jumpsuits and were clean shaven with neatly cut hair. Isaac already has a job lined up at Ernst & Young when he graduates. Stephen is hoping to enter the professional mascot world, and if that doesn’t work, will try to get a job in a sports organization’s front office. Given that he interned with the Padres last summer, it doesn’t really seem like a pipe dream anymore.

Both students used words like “unique,” “creative,” “community,” and “positive experiences.” They referred to wearing the mascot costume as being “in-suit,” and came across as far more mature than 21 or 22-years-old. They are serious and focused young men.

Being Otto and Rameses is, therefore, a respite, allowing them to let loose in ways they can’t as Isaac and Stephen. The suits release them from the confines of being themselves. They grant a glorious freedom to be silly and are the reason Isaac and Stephen can dance in front of thousands of fans and millions of people on national television as though they were alone in their bedrooms.

“You get to put yourself out there without people actually knowing it’s you. It’s very rewarding,” Stephen said, checking his phone to be sure he’d have enough time to suit up before the game.

Isaac had said something similar the day before.

“When I put the suit on, I’m doing things I would never normally do,” he told me. “I’m standing in front of 35,000 people at a basketball game in ‘Cuse and waving my arms and dancing on the court. I would never do anything like that. I honestly consider myself a bit of an introvert. When I was first recruiting for the team I was like, ‘I’m a pretty quiet person, I keep to myself.’ But this has pushed me so far and challenged me. I think I’ve grown a lot from the experience.”

You probably have a lot of questions about the logistics of being a mascot. Yes, it’s hot in there, and yes, everybody asks that. A lot of people do try to grab their butts. No, Isaac and Stephen can’t talk when they’re in the suit. Yes, they bring their own flair to their dancing, but each mascot has some signature moves so that when one of the other students occupies the suit, the character stays consistent. But no, they won’t tell you who those other people are or how many of them exist.

And yes, of course it’s exhausting. They have to be in incredible shape. No, they’re not close with the athletes they cheer on because the players don’t know their identities, either. But yes, Brice Johnson did pat Rameses’ chest before every ACC tournament game last year, and yes, Stephen did feel like he was a good luck charm.

The Rameses suit is heavy. It starts out at 20 pounds but can reach 40 depending on how sweat-soaked it gets. Otto is lighter. Isaac and Stephen know each other — being a mascot in the ACC is a “strange brotherhood.” The students playing Otto run his social media accounts — he can’t talk, so Twitter gives him a voice. (“Imagine someone talking in all-caps all the time.”)

Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images

Stephen got up from the table. He had to suit up for the game against Miami. (He was nervous — he always gets nervous before games.) He told me to email him if I had any more questions and then shook my hand. It felt like the end of a business meeting. He disappeared into the hallways of Barclays to change.

I wandered out and made my way through the tunnel to the court. The glorious pomp and circumstance of college basketball was in full swing: The pep bands honked away, the fans yelled absurd things at 19-year-old athletes, and the dance teams fidgeted on the sidelines and adjusted their outfits.

The UNC mascot stood just outside the tunnel facing the court. He turned around, flung both of his arms out in greeting, and did a little dance. He hugged me. Then he mimed kissing me on the cheek with his sheep nose, behaving nothing like the shy college student I’d been talking to minutes earlier.

That’s because he was no longer Stephen. He was Rameses.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

[junker-town]

How Gonzaga became America’s most polarizing college basketball program

In just two decades, Gonzaga has made the seemingly impossible transition from lovable Cinderella to America’s most disliked and distrusted powerhouse.

Eighteen years ago this month, Gonzaga became America’s most popular college basketball team. Making just its second NCAA tournament appearance in program history, an undersized Bulldog team led by junior guards Richie Frahm and Matt Santangelo made Gonzaga a household name for the first time.

The Zags opened up their tournament run with a 12-point romp over Clem Haskins and Minnesota, an at-large bid recipient from the mighty Big Ten. They then completely shook up the entire West Region with an 82-74 triumph over second-seeded Stanford. A victory over Florida to kick off the tournament’s second weekend had Gonzaga in a previously unthinkable position: One win away from the Final Four.

For the next 48 hours, network news shows and national radio stations ran the requisite stories about average people not even knowing where Gonzaga was and about the school’s website crashing from the increased interest their basketball team’s run had garnered the school as a whole. Standard March Cinderella stuff.

Even after falling to eventual champion Connecticut in a hard-fought 67-62 West Regional final, Gonzaga had established itself as an American favorite. A name the country would remember and would keep an eye out for the next time March rolled around. In the caste system of big-time college athletics, that’s the most a mid- or low-major college hoops program could ever hope for.

Then a weird thing started to happen. Gonzaga was back the next year. The year after that, too. And the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that.

Suddenly, the Bulldogs were every bit as much of a March fixture as Duke. But it wasn’t just March. Gonzaga was scheduling major-conference opponents and playing in big early-season tournaments in November and December, and they were winning. They were winning a lot.

Mark Few — who had taken over the year after Gonzaga’s initial Elite Eight run after Dan Monson ironically bolted for Minnesota — had somehow taken a program from the lowly West Coast Conference and turned it into a perennial national player. This, like the Zags’ original run, was cool with America. A new name on the national scene, and one with humble beginnings and a much taller annual wall to climb than the established powerhouses. How could it not be cool?

At some point between then and now, a change happened. Gonzaga went from irrefutably cool to the program everybody outside of Spokane loves to hate.

Now a change that extreme and that complete couldn’t possibly happen overnight. It has to be a layered situation with a genesis that’s hard to pinpoint.

There’s no way to know for certain, but the best guess for when Gonzaga’s heel turn began lies in the final minutes of a game played on March 24, 2006. The date might not ring an immediate bell for you, but the game will.

Led by national Player of the Year candidate Adam Morrison, Gonzaga had earned a No. 3 seed for the 2006 big dance. Such a lofty taking-off point had become old hat for the Bulldogs by this point. They had been a No. 2 seed in 2004 and a No. 3 seed the year after that, both times failing to make it out of the tournament’s second round. The 2006 squad had already eclipsed those trips by making it to the Sweet 16, and appeared destined to play further into the tournament’s second weekend.

From the opening tip on, Gonzaga had dominated second-seeded UCLA on that night. The Zags led by as many as 17 in the first half and had fans across the country talking about them officially “not being a mid-major anymore.” With a little over three minutes to play, the Bulldogs held a 71-62 advantage. They had shown no signs over the course of the previous 37 minutes that such a lead could be squandered. They would not score again.

In the game’s final minute, Gonzaga finally looked like the program from the bottom of college basketball’s totem pole facing the one with 11 national championships. They missed free throws, they threw the ball away, and they gave up uncontested lay-ups. UCLA scored the game’s final 11 points, the Bulldogs lost, and Morrison cried on the court. I’m sure you remember it well.

Even though the team hadn’t played to its seed in each of the previous two years, this was the first time America really felt like it had been taken by the Zags. This wasn’t the country being let down by Gonzaga the scrappy underachiever whose winning would stun everybody. This was America being let down by Gonzaga the established top-25 program that shouldn’t be completely unraveling in the final minutes of Sweet 16 games.

It was more difficult to notice afterward, but the transition continued to unfold after ’06.

Gonzaga continued to make the tournament every year, but most of the time they were seeded somewhere between 7-11. Sometimes they won a game or two, sometimes they didn’t. Like a middle-of-the-road Eastern Conference team in an era of NBA superpowers, the Bulldogs were just sort of there.

Then, the 2012-13 season happened. Gonzaga navigated through a strong non-conference schedule with just two losses, rolled to a perfect record in the West Coast Conference’s regular season, and claimed the conference’s tournament title. On Selection Sunday, the Bulldogs were given a No. 1 seed in a West Region that the public agreed appeared to be the worst of the four the Selection Committee had put together. It was time for Mark Few’s team to finally cash in and make the world a believer again.

The Zags were stunned by ninth-seeded Wichita State in the second round.

Never mind that Wichita State would go on to win the West Region and give eventual national champion Louisville its biggest scare of the tournament, this was a betrayal on Gonzaga’s part that confirmed the party lines of the program’s many detractors. The perceived success of the Bulldogs was the product of a weak conference and little else. This was a program that wouldn’t be able to hack it for 10 consecutive weeks in the ACC or the Big Ten or any other power conference with depth beyond its three best teams. This was no longer a hypothesis, this was a fact. The proof lay in March.

A trip to the Elite Eight in 2015 and a surprise run to the Sweet 16 as an 11 seed the year after that did nothing to shake the nation’s new perception of Gonzaga. The transformation from lovable upstart to perpetually underachieving paper tiger had been completed.

For the past four months on social media, the mere mention of two things has been guaranteed to elicit an immediate and extreme response: The President of the United States of America, and Gonzaga basketball. Somehow, in a season where Duke has fielded perhaps its most controversial player since Christian Laettner, it’s been a West Coast team from a low-major conference that has born the brunt of America’s disdain.

The Zags are the nation’s lone undefeated team? They’re still a joke. Mark Few has power-conference transfers that make this team look and play more like a power conference team than ever before? Don’t wanna hear it. The Bulldogs are going to be a No. 1 seed and they deserve to be? Whatever, they’ll be out in the Sweet 16 or earlier, that’s a guarantee.

This is where Gonzaga is, and where it’s destined to remain until it finally breaks through and plays its way to a Final Four. Never mind that the Bulldogs are about to participate in their 18th consecutive NCAA tournament, never mind that they’ve won at least one game in the dance eight straight times (the longest streak in the country), never mind that they’ve actually played to or above their tournament seed in 12 of their 17 March Madness runs. None of this matters. In the public’s eye, Gonzaga is little more than an example of how easy it is to find consistent success in a low-major conference, and a product of the media that loves to overhype them every chance they get.

But is there something to that second point?

Based on the accomplishments laid out earlier, Gonzaga is obviously a worthy recipient for praise. But is the media overplaying its hand when it speculates that the Zags would win the ACC or when it pegs the team as the most likely of any to cut down the nets at the end of the season? It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

College basketball is a tough sport to cover. There are 351 Division I teams, which means if you want to check out one at any given time, you’re probably missing out on the chance to watch at least 50 others. The American public has little desire to stay up until 1 a.m. (on the East Coast) just to watch Gonzaga play Pacific on ESPN2 in order to establish a more educated opinion on the merits of the Bulldogs as a national title contender. College hoops media members do.

Any media member who’s written anything on Gonzaga this season has immediately been hit with a dozen variations of “they’re overrated/we hear this every year/they’re going to lose early in the tournament” on Twitter. For the people who put significant time and effort into establishing the basis for the story they just wrote, this is like a math teacher being handed the answer to a complex equation with no work being shown.

Yeah, your answer may have some merit, but tell me how you got there. I know your road wasn’t fueled by as much effort as mine was.

With this phenomenon consistently at work, it’s possible that frustrated college basketball writers have at times gone over the top with their responses. If you like a song and someone gives you a well thought out reason why they don’t, you’re probably going to be okay with it and recognize that there’s some validity to the counter-argument. If you like a song and someone tells you bluntly that it’s the “biggest piece of crap ever,” you might be more inclined to come back with a list of reasons why it’s actually “the greatest song ever.”

All of these factors come together to make Gonzaga maybe the most fascinating program in college basketball right now. Somehow, a tiny program with virtually no history before the start of the 21st century has situated itself right next to Duke and Kentucky on the top of America’s college basketball hit list.

Could this course be reversed? Absolutely. All Gonzaga needs to do is do what every major sports figure or team that has been loved, then hated, then loved again did: Win.

LeBron James didn’t win back a segment of the American public after his “The Decision” debacle until he captured his first championship. It’s easy to forget that the Patriots were at the center of a “do we overrate them as a franchise” discussion before they won their first Super Bowl in a decade in 2014.

If Gonzaga holds true to its seed this month, wins the West Region, and plays in the Final Four in Phoenix, the story will circle around to where it was 18 years ago. The college basketball world will both remember and recognize how remarkable it is for the Bulldogs to be in the position they are.

No low major program has ever broken through like this. And to be able to maintain that status, and keep its head coach, for two decades? Unbelievable! One of the best stories to come out of any major American sport.

If an early exit occurs, or even if Gonzaga falls to Arizona in an Elite 8 game where it would likely be an underdog, I don’t need to tell you what the response will be. It’s extreme, it’s indolent, and it’s unfair, but it’s life as America’s most polarizing college basketball program.

[junker-town]

How Gonzaga became America’s most polarizing college basketball program

In just two decades, Gonzaga has made the seemingly impossible transition from lovable Cinderella to America’s most disliked and distrusted powerhouse.

Eighteen years ago this month, Gonzaga became America’s most popular college basketball team. Making just its second NCAA tournament appearance in program history, an undersized Bulldog team led by junior guards Richie Frahm and Matt Santangelo made Gonzaga a household name for the first time.

The Zags opened up their tournament run with a 12-point romp over Clem Haskins and Minnesota, an at-large bid recipient from the mighty Big Ten. They then completely shook up the entire West Region with an 82-74 triumph over second-seeded Stanford. A victory over Florida to kick off the tournament’s second weekend had Gonzaga in a previously unthinkable position: One win away from the Final Four.

For the next 48 hours, network news shows and national radio stations ran the requisite stories about average people not even knowing where Gonzaga was and about the school’s website crashing from the increased interest their basketball team’s run had garnered the school as a whole. Standard March Cinderella stuff.

Even after falling to eventual champion Connecticut in a hard-fought 67-62 West Regional final, Gonzaga had established itself as an American favorite. A name the country would remember and would keep an eye out for the next time March rolled around. In the caste system of big-time college athletics, that’s the most a mid- or low-major college hoops program could ever hope for.

Then a weird thing started to happen. Gonzaga was back the next year. The year after that, too. And the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that.

Suddenly, the Bulldogs were every bit as much of a March fixture as Duke. But it wasn’t just March. Gonzaga was scheduling major-conference opponents and playing in big early-season tournaments in November and December, and they were winning. They were winning a lot.

Mark Few — who had taken over the year after Gonzaga’s initial Elite Eight run after Dan Monson ironically bolted for Minnesota — had somehow taken a program from the lowly West Coast Conference and turned it into a perennial national player. This, like the Zags’ original run, was cool with America. A new name on the national scene, and one with humble beginnings and a much taller annual wall to climb than the established powerhouses. How could it not be cool?

At some point between then and now, a change happened. Gonzaga went from irrefutably cool to the program everybody outside of Spokane loves to hate.

Now a change that extreme and that complete couldn’t possibly happen overnight. It has to be a layered situation with a genesis that’s hard to pinpoint.

There’s no way to know for certain, but the best guess for when Gonzaga’s heel turn began lies in the final minutes of a game played on March 24, 2006. The date might not ring an immediate bell for you, but the game will.

Led by national Player of the Year candidate Adam Morrison, Gonzaga had earned a No. 3 seed for the 2006 big dance. Such a lofty taking-off point had become old hat for the Bulldogs by this point. They had been a No. 2 seed in 2004 and a No. 3 seed the year after that, both times failing to make it out of the tournament’s second round. The 2006 squad had already eclipsed those trips by making it to the Sweet 16, and appeared destined to play further into the tournament’s second weekend.

From the opening tip on, Gonzaga had dominated second-seeded UCLA on that night. The Zags led by as many as 17 in the first half and had fans across the country talking about them officially “not being a mid-major anymore.” With a little over three minutes to play, the Bulldogs held a 71-62 advantage. They had shown no signs over the course of the previous 37 minutes that such a lead could be squandered. They would not score again.

In the game’s final minute, Gonzaga finally looked like the program from the bottom of college basketball’s totem pole facing the one with 11 national championships. They missed free throws, they threw the ball away, and they gave up uncontested lay-ups. UCLA scored the game’s final 11 points, the Bulldogs lost, and Morrison cried on the court. I’m sure you remember it well.

Even though the team hadn’t played to its seed in each of the previous two years, this was the first time America really felt like it had been taken by the Zags. This wasn’t the country being let down by Gonzaga the scrappy underachiever whose winning would stun everybody. This was America being let down by Gonzaga the established top-25 program that shouldn’t be completely unraveling in the final minutes of Sweet 16 games.

It was more difficult to notice afterward, but the transition continued to unfold after ’06.

Gonzaga continued to make the tournament every year, but most of the time they were seeded somewhere between 7-11. Sometimes they won a game or two, sometimes they didn’t. Like a middle-of-the-road Eastern Conference team in an era of NBA superpowers, the Bulldogs were just sort of there.

Then, the 2012-13 season happened. Gonzaga navigated through a strong non-conference schedule with just two losses, rolled to a perfect record in the West Coast Conference’s regular season, and claimed the conference’s tournament title. On Selection Sunday, the Bulldogs were given a No. 1 seed in a West Region that the public agreed appeared to be the worst of the four the Selection Committee had put together. It was time for Mark Few’s team to finally cash in and make the world a believer again.

The Zags were stunned by ninth-seeded Wichita State in the second round.

Never mind that Wichita State would go on to win the West Region and give eventual national champion Louisville its biggest scare of the tournament, this was a betrayal on Gonzaga’s part that confirmed the party lines of the program’s many detractors. The perceived success of the Bulldogs was the product of a weak conference and little else. This was a program that wouldn’t be able to hack it for 10 consecutive weeks in the ACC or the Big Ten or any other power conference with depth beyond its three best teams. This was no longer a hypothesis, this was a fact. The proof lay in March.

A trip to the Elite Eight in 2015 and a surprise run to the Sweet 16 as an 11 seed the year after that did nothing to shake the nation’s new perception of Gonzaga. The transformation from lovable upstart to perpetually underachieving paper tiger had been completed.

For the past four months on social media, the mere mention of two things has been guaranteed to elicit an immediate and extreme response: The President of the United States of America, and Gonzaga basketball. Somehow, in a season where Duke has fielded perhaps its most controversial player since Christian Laettner, it’s been a West Coast team from a low-major conference that has born the brunt of America’s disdain.

The Zags are the nation’s lone undefeated team? They’re still a joke. Mark Few has power-conference transfers that make this team look and play more like a power conference team than ever before? Don’t wanna hear it. The Bulldogs are going to be a No. 1 seed and they deserve to be? Whatever, they’ll be out in the Sweet 16 or earlier, that’s a guarantee.

This is where Gonzaga is, and where it’s destined to remain until it finally breaks through and plays its way to a Final Four. Never mind that the Bulldogs are about to participate in their 18th consecutive NCAA tournament, never mind that they’ve won at least one game in the dance eight straight times (the longest streak in the country), never mind that they’ve actually played to or above their tournament seed in 12 of their 17 March Madness runs. None of this matters. In the public’s eye, Gonzaga is little more than an example of how easy it is to find consistent success in a low-major conference, and a product of the media that loves to overhype them every chance they get.

But is there something to that second point?

Based on the accomplishments laid out earlier, Gonzaga is obviously a worthy recipient for praise. But is the media overplaying its hand when it speculates that the Zags would win the ACC or when it pegs the team as the most likely of any to cut down the nets at the end of the season? It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

College basketball is a tough sport to cover. There are 351 Division I teams, which means if you want to check out one at any given time, you’re probably missing out on the chance to watch at least 50 others. The American public has little desire to stay up until 1 a.m. (on the East Coast) just to watch Gonzaga play Pacific on ESPN2 in order to establish a more educated opinion on the merits of the Bulldogs as a national title contender. College hoops media members do.

Any media member who’s written anything on Gonzaga this season has immediately been hit with a dozen variations of “they’re overrated/we hear this every year/they’re going to lose early in the tournament” on Twitter. For the people who put significant time and effort into establishing the basis for the story they just wrote, this is like a math teacher being handed the answer to a complex equation with no work being shown.

Yeah, your answer may have some merit, but tell me how you got there. I know your road wasn’t fueled by as much effort as mine was.

With this phenomenon consistently at work, it’s possible that frustrated college basketball writers have at times gone over the top with their responses. If you like a song and someone gives you a well thought out reason why they don’t, you’re probably going to be okay with it and recognize that there’s some validity to the counter-argument. If you like a song and someone tells you bluntly that it’s the “biggest piece of crap ever,” you might be more inclined to come back with a list of reasons why it’s actually “the greatest song ever.”

All of these factors come together to make Gonzaga maybe the most fascinating program in college basketball right now. Somehow, a tiny program with virtually no history before the start of the 21st century has situated itself right next to Duke and Kentucky on the top of America’s college basketball hit list.

Could this course be reversed? Absolutely. All Gonzaga needs to do is do what every major sports figure or team that has been loved, then hated, then loved again did: Win.

LeBron James didn’t win back a segment of the American public after his “The Decision” debacle until he captured his first championship. It’s easy to forget that the Patriots were at the center of a “do we overrate them as a franchise” discussion before they won their first Super Bowl in a decade in 2014.

If Gonzaga holds true to its seed this month, wins the West Region, and plays in the Final Four in Phoenix, the story will circle around to where it was 18 years ago. The college basketball world will both remember and recognize how remarkable it is for the Bulldogs to be in the position they are.

No low major program has ever broken through like this. And to be able to maintain that status, and keep its head coach, for two decades? Unbelievable! One of the best stories to come out of any major American sport.

If an early exit occurs, or even if Gonzaga falls to Arizona in an Elite 8 game where it would likely be an underdog, I don’t need to tell you what the response will be. It’s extreme, it’s indolent, and it’s unfair, but it’s life as America’s most polarizing college basketball program.

[junker-town]

How Gonzaga became America’s most polarizing college basketball program

In just two decades, Gonzaga has made the seemingly impossible transition from lovable Cinderella to America’s most disliked and distrusted powerhouse.

Eighteen years ago this month, Gonzaga became America’s most popular college basketball team. Making just its second NCAA tournament appearance in program history, an undersized Bulldog team led by junior guards Richie Frahm and Matt Santangelo made Gonzaga a household name for the first time.

The Zags opened up their tournament run with a 12-point romp over Clem Haskins and Minnesota, an at-large bid recipient from the mighty Big Ten. They then completely shook up the entire West Region with an 82-74 triumph over second-seeded Stanford. A victory over Florida to kick off the tournament’s second weekend had Gonzaga in a previously unthinkable position: One win away from the Final Four.

For the next 48 hours, network news shows and national radio stations ran the requisite stories about average people not even knowing where Gonzaga was and about the school’s website crashing from the increase interest their basketball team’s run had garnered the school as a whole. Standard March Cinderella stuff.

Even after falling to eventual champion Connecticut in a hard-fought 67-62 West Regional final, Gonzaga had established itself as an American favorite. A name the country would remember and would keep an eye out for the next time March rolled around. In the caste system of big-time college athletics, that’s the most a mid or low major college hoops program could ever hope for.

Then a weird thing started to happen. Gonzaga was back the next year. The year after that, too. And the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that.

Suddenly, the Bulldogs were every bit as much of a March fixture as Duke. But it wasn’t just March. Gonzaga was scheduling major conference opponents and playing in big early season tournaments in November and December, and they were winning. They were winning a lot.

Mark Few -- who had taken over the year after Gonzaga’s initial Elite 8 run after Dan Munson ironically bolted for Minnesota — had somehow taken a program from the lowly West Coast Conference and turned it into a perennial national player. This, like the Zags’ original run, was cool with America. A new name on the national scene, and one with humble beginnings and a much taller annual wall to climb than the established powerhouses. How could it not be cool?

At some point between then and now, a change happened. Gonzaga went from irrefutably cool to the program everybody outside of Spokane loves to hate.

Now a change that extreme and that complete couldn’t possibly happen overnight. It has to be a layered situation with a genesis that’s hard to pinpoint.

There’s no way to know for certain, but the best guess for when Gonzaga’s heel turn began lies in the final minutes of a game played on March 24, 2006. The date might not ring an immediate bell for you, but the game will.

Led by national Player of the Year candidate Adam Morrison, Gonzaga had earned a No. 3 seed for the 2006 big dance. Such a lofty taking off point had become old hat for the Bulldogs by this point. They had been a No. 2 seed in 2004 and a No. 3 seed the year after that, both times failing to make it out of the tournament’s second round. The 2006 squad had already eclipsed those trips by making it to the Sweet 16, and appeared destined to play further into the tournament’s second weekend.

From the opening tip on, Gonzaga had dominated second-seeded UCLA on that night. The Zags led by as many as 17 in the first half and had fans across the country talking about them officially “not being a mid-major anymore.” With a little over three minutes to play, the Bulldogs held a 71-62 advantage. They had shown no signs over the course of the previous 37 minutes that such a lead could be squandered. They would not score again.

In the game’s final minute, Gonzaga finally looked like the program from the bottom of college basketball’s totem pole facing the one with 11 national championships. They missed free-throws, they threw the ball away, and they gave up uncontested lay-ups. UCLA scored the game’s final 11 points, the Bulldogs lost, and Adam Morrison cried on the court. I’m sure you remember it well.

Even though the team hadn’t played to its seed in each of the previous two years, this was the first time America really felt like it had been taken by the Zags. This wasn’t the country being let down by Gonzaga the scrappy underachiever whose winning would stun everybody. This was America being let down by Gonzaga the established top 25 program that shouldn’t be completely unraveling in the final minutes of Sweet 16 games.

It was more difficult to notice afterward, but the transition continued to unfold after ‘06.

Gonzaga continued to make the tournament every year, but most of the time they were seeded somewhere between 7-11. Sometimes they won a game or two, sometimes they didn’t. Like a middle of the road Eastern Conference team in an era of NBA super powers, the Bulldogs were just sort of there.

Then, the 2012-13 season happened. Gonzaga navigated through a strong non-conference schedule with just two losses, rolled to a perfect record in the West Coast Conference’s regular season, and claimed the conference’s tournament title. On Selection Sunday, the Bulldogs were given a No. 1 seed in a West Region that the public agreed appeared to be the worst of the four the Selection Committee had put together. It was time for Mark Few’s team to finally cash in and make the world a believer again.

The Zags were stunned by ninth-seeded Wichita State in the second round.

Never mind that Wichita State would go on to win the West Region and give eventual national champion Louisville its biggest scare of the tournament, this was a betrayal on Gonzaga’s part that confirmed the party lines of the program’s many detractors. The perceived success of the Bulldogs was the product of a weak conference and little else. This was a program that wouldn’t be able to hack it for 10 consecutive weeks in the ACC or the Big Ten or any other power conference with depth beyond its three best teams. This was no longer a hypothesis, this was a fact. The proof lay in March.

A trip to the Elite 8 in 2015 and a surprise run to the Sweet 16 as an 11 seed the year after that did nothing to shake the nation’s new perception of Gonzaga. The transformation from lovable upstart to perpetually underachieving paper tiger had been completed.

For the past four months on social media, the mere mention of two things has been guaranteed to elicit an immediate and extreme response: The President of the United States of America, and Gonzaga basketball. Somehow, in a season where Duke has fielded perhaps its most controversial player since Christian Laettner, it’s been a West Coast team from a low major conference that has born the brunt of America’s disdain.

The Zags are the nation’s lone undefeated team? They’re still a joke. Mark Few has power conference transfers that make this team look and play more like a power conference team than ever before? Don’t wanna hear it. The Bulldogs are going to be a No. 1 seed and they deserve to be? Whatever, they’ll be out in the Sweet 16 or earlier, that’s a guarantee.

This is where Gonzaga is, and where it’s destined to remain until it finally breaks through and plays its way to a Final Four. Never mind that the Bulldogs are about to participate in their 18th consecutive NCAA tournament, never mind that they’ve won at least won game in the dance eight straight times (the longest streak in the country), never mind that they’ve actually played to or above their tournament seed in 12 of their 17 March Madness runs. None of this matters. In the public’s eye, Gonzaga is little more than an example of how easy it is to find consistent success in a low major conference, and a product of the media that loves to overhype them every chance they get.

But is there something to that second point?

Based on the accomplishments laid out earlier, Gonzaga is obviously a worthy recipient for praise. But is the media overplaying its hand when it speculates that the Zags would win the ACC or when it pegs the team as the most likely of any to cut down the nets at the end of the season? It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

College basketball is a tough sport to cover. There are 351 Division-I teams, which means if you want to check out one at any given time, you’re probably missing out on the chance to watch at least 50 others. The American public has little desire to stay up until 1 a.m. (on the East Coast) just to watch Gonzaga play Pacific on ESPN2 in order to establish a more educated opinion on the merits of the Bulldogs as a national title contender. College hoops media members do.

Any media member who’s written anything on Gonzaga this season has immediately been hit with a dozen variations of “they’re overrated/we hear this every year/they’re going to lose early in the tournament” on Twitter. For the people who put significant time and effort into establishing the basis for the story they just wrote, this is like a math teacher being handed the answer to a complex equation with no work being shown.

Yeah, your answer may have some merit, but tell me how you got there. I know your road wasn’t fueled by as much effort as mine was.

With this phenomenon consistently at work, it’s certainly possible that frustrated college basketball writers have at times gone over the top with their responses. If you like a song and someone gives you a well thought out reason why they don’t, you’re probably going to be ok with it and recognize that there’s some validity to the counter-argument. If you like a song and someone tells you bluntly that it’s the “biggest piece of crap ever,” you might be more inclined to come back with a list of reasons why it’s actually “the greatest song ever.”

All of these factors come together to make Gonzaga maybe the most fascinating program in college basketball right now. Somehow, a tiny program with virtually no history before the start of the 21st century has situated itself right next to Duke and Kentucky on the top of America’s college basketball hit list.

Could this course be reversed? Absolutely. All Gonzaga needs to do is do what every major sports figure or team that has been loved, then hated, then loved again did: Win.

LeBron James didn’t win back a segment of the American Public after his “The Decision” debacle until he captured his first World Championship. It’s easy to forget that the Patriots were at the center of a “do we overrate them as a franchise” discussion before they won their first Super Bowl in a decade in 2014.

If Gonzaga holds true to its seed this month, wins the West Region and plays in the Final Four in Phoenix, the story will circle around to where it was 18 years ago. The college basketball world will both remember and recognize how remarkable it is for the Bulldogs to be in the position they are.

No low major program has ever broken through like this. And to be able to maintain that status, and keep their head coach, for two decades? Unbelievable! One of the best stories to come out of any major American sport.

If an early exit occurs, or even if Gonzaga falls to Arizona in an Elite 8 game where it would likely be an underdog, I don’t need to tell you what the response will be. It’s extreme, it’s indolent and it’s unfair, but it’s life as America’s most polarizing college basketball program.