The Life Cycle Of A Hot Take
We live in a strange world these days. Hot Takes dominate sports media. Skip Bayless, Stephen A Smith, Cowherd…folks like that made their name on hot takes before the term hot takes were even a thing.
I’m kind of torn on whether or not they are good. Immediate glance would be a no. It’s pretty bad that an entire news cycle can revolve around some guy who said a controversial thing with no real basis. Hot takes are an easy way to get attention for brief periods and that’s how we got people like Skip Bayless basically learning he can make a career out of constantly spouting hot takes and feed on the sustained hate. Hot takes can even build momentum enough to actually become the narrative, like Jay Cutler’s whole knee injury fiasco (I can’t actually remember a “Jay Cutler doesn’t care” joke before that happened). Hell I remember a time when saying Tony Romo was actually a good QB was a hot take. Took a long time to make that the actual story.
On the other hand, as stupid and terrible as many of them are, they do invite fun and sometimes great discussion. The most talked about and controversial thing I ever said on this site was a take about who the GOAT is. It’s lead to countless large arguments in the comments and legions of people who are still legit mad at me because I dared state a personal belief slightly contrary to the general consensus. It wasn’t even as controversial at the time I first said it. Despite the legions of dummies who still go after me every time Brady does a good football thing, it’s generally been good. I’ve seen a lot of great arguments and discussion on the topic even just to “prove me wrong”, even as I’ve delved into simply straight up trolling the dummies who take it too seriously at this point.
Honestly the best hot take is a lot like that particular take. Something that is controversial, but not actually that implausible. Something that has most arguments against it, but from a certain perspective actually makes some sense. Tim Tebow was actually great and got completely screwed over. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, people still believe, because there enough evidence and ambiguity there that hey, maybe. A great hot take exists in that empty space of the impossible to actually prove.
I guess I’m generally okay with Hot Takes. A lot of bad comes with them, and you have to sort of learn to wade the sea of filth for the islands of quality analysis that come out of it. Honestly all media is like that in some way. Also, they’re fun, from watching a hot take get proven incredibly wrong to enjoying a lively argument with buddies over whether or not Bama could beat the worst NFL team (Not a fucking chance, btw).
Just remember that like, sports are entertainment and argue hot takes responsibly. No need to harass or harm or try to ruin someone because they think something else. It’s all in good fun.
Sometimes hotcakes are made up with not stats, like how skip Bayless got famous: calling Aikman gay back in the 90’s when that wasn’t cool.
Here’s my hottake on Calvin Johnson about saying the Lions didn’t treat him right when he retired: Megatron is right, the Lions fucked him. At least he played more than 2 years before ‘retiring’ (Happy late 40th birthday Ricky Williams) Also, Calvin will be in purple/green and gold if the Lions even get close to sniffing the playoffs this year.
Yum, hotcakes
Mmm, hotcakes.
Hot takes are wonderful for those times of year where there’s nothing worthwhile going on and you need to generate discussion. They’re also a lot of fun when there’s enough evidence for both sides that the arguments can be fun. (Is Matt Ryan an MVP because he’s that good, or because he had elite offensive talent around him to go along with a good offensive mind? Is Richard Sherman a legitimate lockdown corner worth what Seattle wants for him, or a system product aided by the rest of the Legion of Boom who’s just above-average on his own? Is Dak the future stud for Dallas, or just a not-terrible-but-nothing-special ball manager aided by an elite OL, an elite RB, an elite WR, and a HoF TE?)
The main problem I have with them is when they become the core of what you do, as it seems like it happens with 90% of ESPN’s “analysis” nowadays. Hot takes are filler for when you don’t have anything else and need to talk about something in the offseason or on a slow news day when nothing else is happening, they’re not the main course you should be presenting rather than actual objective analysis when whatever sport you cover is in full swing. If we’re in the middle of the season, I don’t want to hear talking heads yelling hot takes at the camera, I want a breakdown of last week’s impressive plays, important injuries, et al.
The other problem I have is when they’re blatant nonsense that’s being said purely for controversy. Looking at you, Skip Bayless. Anyone who says that Tim Tebow is better than Tom Brady, or that Carmelo Anthony is better than LeBron James, is just trying to drum up attention by saying ridiculous outlandish absurdities. I almost don’t want to call something like that a hot take.
I remember the time when Bayless claimed that Justin Tuck is at fault for Flozell attacking him, I mean WTF? ALso don’t get me started on all those times when the media tries to compare someone to Michael Jordan. Then there’s all those rape allegations to every celebrities before anything was proven showing thta nothing changed since Arbuckle got screwed.
Tags: HOT TAKES, MUY CALIENTE TAKES, Opinions that are generally somewhat controversial, TAKES THAT ARE HOT
It seems that the prevalence of hot takes has increased as the number of people looking online (and to Twitter, especially) for breaking news has increased. Television, radio, and (long long ago) print could once make their living simply covering the news, but now their consumers know the story before they even get to one of these mediums. Hot takes fill time and generate a lot of attention, or at least more attention than just reporting the news would.
Hot takes in sports are a symptom of a bigger blemish in media as a whole: the desire to generate controversy as quickly and as often as possible. Once you have that one little spicy tidbit of information, that little assertion that may or may not be true but works swimmingly as an internet article title or text in a news ticker, you’re golden. Publish it ASAP. Don’t worry about checking facts. Start yelling about it dramatically, and make sure you ask some highly regarded people their opinion on the matter. And the masses, well they seem to eat it up. People seem to enjoy reading a headline and getting incredibly upset about it, even if they didn’t know the first thing about it 10 minutes ago.
Look at those three names again.
Stephen A. Smith.
Skip Bayless.
Colin Cowherd.
These aren’t hot takes, they’re just self-important twats flapping their gums to try and stay the inevitable realisation by the masses of just how much of a bellend they actually are. You get more useful news farts out of LeBatard & Stugotz than out of those three combined.
Why the hell didn’t that appear on my browser until now?
Speaking of Oakland, I have been meaning to ask you. Ever notice how whenever the players were either cut or left the Giants on free agency, they sign with the Raiders? What’s up with that? Were they trying to be like the Giants?
They seem to be copying more of the seahawks. Have you seen the sizes of their db’s? And then Marshawn Lynch and until he left the Raiders, Malcolm Smith
That’s recent, the Raiders have been signing ex-Giants for decades for reasons unknown. I think it’s because they got lucky with Todd Christensen and had been trying to repeat it since then. They did succeed with that bust Wheatley who couldn’t do jack with us…
oh shit your next comic is #666
If Devil Goodell is not involved, I will be seriously disappointed.
http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/your-time-has-come-philadelphia/
Maybe John Travolta, Ernest Borginine, and William Shatner will be there too.
Don’t forget Mark Wahlberg
I don’t think Marky Mark was in that movie, maybe if they remade it…
Look at those three names again.
Stephen A Smith.
Skip Bayless.
Colin Cowherd.
Giant steaming asshats one and all.
They aren’t hot takes, it’s mendacious hate-whores trying to stay in the spotlight by coming up with whatever edgelord bullshit they can and repeatedly spouting it loudly to whoever dares put them in front of a mic.
Have you ever heard of Katie Hopkins? She is the UK’s answer to these professional oxygen thieves, and no bugger here can stand her hateful outpourings either.
My favorite hot take that got proved wrong was “The Indianapolis Colts should have taken RGIII over Andrew Luck”
So do people message you personally about your opinions on Brady vs Manning?
I get plenty of tweets, the occasional facebook message to me on my page, and sometimes emails. After the Superbowl every inbox was flooded with people saying SEE HOW CAN YOU DENY IT. When he got the Madden cover I got some more.