Barstool Sports jokes about the armed robbery of Temple students as ‘Free Advertising’

‘It was two paragraphs, what I’m sure was their best attempt, of minimally articulated horse shit’

Early Wednesday morning Temple students were forced to lie on the floor of their apartment as they were held at gunpoint. Their personal belongings were stolen by three unknown suspects. In the footage taken there was a Barstool Sports flag hanging in the window of the apartment.

Hours after the robbery occurred, Barstool was quick to respond to the “free advertising” from the flag as the reports of the incident began flooding in.

The article titled, “Huge Shout Out To These Temple Stoolies For Getting Their Place Robbed,” was insensitive and offered a degrading account of what actually happened. The article starts by saying, “Now this is what we call taking one for the team. Ain’t no advertising like free advertising. Not gonna lie, I laughed out loud when I saw this.”

The author had no idea whether the students were harmed in anyway before putting out the article addressing it saying, “I hope these guys are alright.” With little to no concern of the safety of the students, a free t-shirt was offered to replace the stolen items – how considerate.

A joke was made of a terrifying and utterly unfortunate event before the students even had time to realize what had happened. Attending school in North Philadelphia comes with its disadvantages – we are all aware of our surroundings. To make light of a situation every student fears while attending this university is completely disrespectful.

The inappropriate take on free advertising comes at the cost of the peace of mind students and parents are searching for. The racist and insensitive comments left on the article display the type of readers that are in Barstool’s audience, which makes sense of why such an article was ever even an article.

Senior, Annie Malmud, music major, had her own opinion on the incident.

“Barstool always gives a rather blunt commentary on things. Free advertising like that is not exactly the thing a robbery victim wants to hear about after having a gun pointed at them but I can guarantee the guys at Barstool mean no harm. They’re probably just trying to find light in a pretty bad situation.”

“I don’t think people quite realize that we are in an area where you have to watch out for yourself and you always have to make sure that your doors are locked,” Annie said. “It’s terrible to have to assume the worst from everyone but it’s the only way to keep yourself safe. I by no means mean that anyone deserves to have their house broken into or a gun pointed at them but unfortunately people need to be safer.”

Other students felt differently on the situation, like sophomore Brad Sales, a kinesiology major. “I’m usually a fan of Barstool but that’s fucked up,” he said.

Sophomore strategic communications major, Jordana Artiachi, agreed with him saying, “That’s insensitive as fuck, the article basically said nothing at all.”

“It was two paragraphs, what I’m sure was their best attempt, of minimally articulated horse shit,” she said.

All and all, the article was unnecessary, poorly timed and completely disrespectful to the students. Shame on you, Barstool.

More
Temple University