According to a disturbing report posted on Twitter by Tristan Pharis, an editor for A Sea of Blue, Louisville’s own Kamari Lands was catfished on Tinder by a Duke fan. What makes this more disturbing is that said fan went the extra mile to take screenshots of the conversation they had, blow them up, then make posters out of them to be displayed at games.
Pharis commented down below his tweet to emphasize that he not only does not condone harassment of any kind, but also claims the student section had those screenshots anonymously shared prior to the start of Monday’s game.
“I reported the information that I was given, but the Duke student section claims that the screenshots were ‘anonymously shared’ with the student prior to the game,” Pharis said. “I have not received proof of the latter, but want to be transparent.”
NBA’s Donovan Mitchell reportedly caught wind of the viral images of his alma mater’s embarrassing moment, and laughed at it as a reaction. Lands’ fellow teammates and coaches took notice of the sign during Monday’s game then proceeded to laugh at him, according to Brooks Holton of the Courier Journal.
The conversation between Lands and his Tinder concluded with him asking them if they were going to come by his team’s hotel to visit him. They apparently did not respond to him.
This is disturbing behavior by fans, and anyone who thinks this is something to make a joke about I believe is equally disturbing. Surely Lands has learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of social media and dating apps, but this is more so on those who wanted to make a name for themselves off the name of an athlete. Student or not.
How bored do you have to try to catfish someone just because the person in question happens to play for your rival school? Social media has made people too comfortable, believing they can say or do anything without the fear of repercussion. Whether this could’ve been worse or not does not matter, the fact remains that it should never have happened in the first place.
Weird behavior by weird people who wanted their fifteen seconds of fame.
Flip the pages for some of the reactions to catfishing.
