This video landed on my lap this morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CUiND-F9wtQ
(Now, let me warn you: The rest of this blog post is pretty NSFW and strong language is used throughout. Children, please cover your parents’ eyes.)
Of course, for some reason, the one group of pseud-Bruins comes to mind, and that is the trash-writing jackasses that the UCLA community has come to know as “Bruinsnation.” (Please use no spaces when referring to them and their drivel as they have no right to call themselves a nation of Bruins. This will also be the only time I link to their cancerous website, so as to put them on notice.)
If you’ve ever followed along with my career as a UCLA blogger — very short little career, I know — then you know how much I hate SB Nation’s Bruinsnation.
The video above? It speaks right to them. Cynics. People who say we’re “naive.” The ones who think UCLA’s many departments are “incompetent.” The “Bruins” who have no shame in saying they’re ashamed to wear their UCLA swag in public. The ones who have lobbied to get you, the real Bruins, to stop going to games to support your team. They’re the ones who blatantly work with uSc graduates to paint our beloved university in the worst light possible. They’re the uncaring cogs who want to compromise UCLA’s prestige as an academic institution by using crappy logic, thinking we must sacrifice academic achievement for good football.
Calling out specific people is one thing. Embarrassing the school and explicitly undermining our prestige by labeling your own university — which has given you nothing but one of the best educations this country has to offer — as a “laughing stock” is something completely different.
Of course, those mindless cogs will counter, “You just want mediocrity. You’re the apathetic fan. You want to settle for less.”
And that’s where their argument stops.
Because they’re missing the point. As tone-deaf as they claim UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero to be — and let’s be real, Guerrero is tone-deaf — they’re just as tone deaf as he is. It’s common knowledge around UCLA circles that they know what they’re talking about: Ben Howland has done horribly this season, Dan Guerrero does need to go, Jim Mora’s hiring was a result of a poor coaching process. No one is arguing that. But because they’re a group of idiots who are almost cult-like in execution, they’ll twist everything the opponents of Bruinsnation have to say to make it seem that way.
So what’s my problem with that garbage-ass website? They pretend to represent the UCLA community. They act as if their opinions are reflective of, not just myself, but you, the reader. And if you manage to swallow your pride and post a comment disagreeing with their drivel? Ban. Their trash isn’t even respected on their own blog network, SB Nation. Let’s check the dialogue on this post on their fellow SB Nation blog California Golden Blogs:
"mrjpark: I didn’t realize how irrational the UCLA fan base was until I saw that article on BN.Sharkbit12 (In response to mrjpark): Eh, it’s not fair to label the entire fanbase as full of crazies. Most of the rational ones fled when they realized they didn’t want to adhere to BN’s ridiculous groupthink mentality.Calbear81 (In response to sharkbit12): Fled or were banned. BN doesn’t allow any deviation from its message of the moment, and bans reasonable UCLA fans who express different opinions.SDBear: BN is full of a bunch of ignorant assholes. The names they call their AD makes me sick. The absolute lack of respect for DG disgust me. Perhaps DG needs to be replaced but to resort to such name calling is childish of BN and their posters.FromCtoShining(Blue)C: A guy on one of their threads brought that up about trashing Mora: “Yes, Mora had a losing record in the NFL as head coach. That is perfectly legitimate to bring up. However, quotes on BruinNation in the last 24 hours have included: ‘Loser talk for a loser coach.’ ‘Mora garbage.’ ‘failure.’ Discussing a coaching record is one thing. Referring to someone with names like ‘loser,’ ‘garbage,’ and ‘failure’ is another thing.” The response? “If you don’t like it, leave.”"
How’s that for an “LOL,” Nestor? Another blog on your own blog network is calling your crew out for lack of class, something all Bruins should have. Of course, while calling a newly-hired coach “garbage,” a “failure” and a “loser” is totally acceptable, Joseph Fauria making fun of another college is not. A little hilarious, considering Bruinsnation has more reach and more of a voice — one that it doesn’t deserve — in the UCLA community than Fauria does. Ironically, UCLA is not the laughing stock — the only laughing stock in Westwood is Bruinsnation. In fact, only bn would support the killing off of their own marching band. Hey, while I’m at it, why don’t I drop out of UCLA to protest how bad our football and basketball programs are? What if we all decided to refuse to pay tuition until we start getting to BCS bowls?
Of course, you may think I’m being hypocritical. Why am I talking poorly of other Bruins? Well … maybe if they’re unwilling to adhere to their own rules about what constitutes a Bruin, then they don’t deserve to be Bruins. Simple as that.
Which is why I’m ashamed to know that this prestigious university let those jackasses in our lecture halls.
Of course, they’ll skim over this and start their rage, labeling every one else any derisive name in the book, as they have before, with this classic line: “You can serve our country and be a morally bankrupt individual with no ethics or integrity. Case in point.” The argument being made, by this worthless piece of trash? That wanting to hire Jim Tressel makes him a morally bankrupt individual with no ethics or integrity.
Sadly, all this evidence is the tiniest of sample sizes I can give you. Of course, you know bruinsnation will read this and regurgitate it anyway they can, so I’ll summarize and go slowly this time, so that their slow-processing skulls can comprehend: Bruinsnation is not wrong in its objective analysis. They are wrong in that they think they are representative of the UCLA community. They put UCLA in a terrible light constantly, nearly ensuring everyone who is unfamiliar to the community comes to the false conclusion that all Bruins are as bat-shit crazy as these guys are. They lack class and demand class. If you have an opinion that they think is dissenting, they demand that you do so with a “Thank you for letting me have an opinion”-type tone while also trying to kiss their ass. If you disagree with what they’re saying, you are an “apathetic Bruin” because what they say is universal fact.
Don’t expect much — if any — of these Bruinsnation rage posts. Nothing that I can do will stop them: they were born idiots, and they’ll die idiots.
But I can ask you to help me take back the fan-base. Because UCLA deserves a lot better than Bruinsnation.
GO BRUINS!!!