Do Not Cyberbully Kids For Being Fans of Anyone

Giovanni is a 13-year-old Philadelphia sports fan who hosts a podcast and has more than 25,000 followers on Twitter. I'm not saying I'm jealous of his success, but to have that kind of foothold in this industry at that age is really damn impressive. Recently, Giovanni shared a picture of himself wearing a new Indianapolis Colts Carson Wentz jersey and a vocal portion of that audience turned on him to the point where his parents had to limit his online interactions.

This is sickening. Every single part of it. He's a kid. Even if he wasn't a kid, it's a jersey. Wentz was traded. He stuck with his favorite player and got bullied for it. He didn't do anything to dsiparage Philadelphia sports and even if he did, who cares? It as inspiring that a kid gets this as it is disappointing that a bunch of adults don't.

Sports fandom is not defined by geography. How fitting that Giovanni shared a picture of himself in a Travis Kelce jersey less than two weeks ago after talking about people's favorite non-Eagles players. A tweet which he ended by saying "be nice to every one and go birds."

As a lifelong Eagles fan, it's no wonder Wentz was his favorite player. And seeing this video from training camp in 2019 when he got to meet Wentz, how could he ever turn his back on him wherever he played?

If you think back to being a kid and loving sports and looking up to athletes. It's pretty pure. It's just someone you think is awesome doing something you think is awesome. There's enough disappointment involved in a lifetime of sports fandom without being shitty to each other. Especially little kids. It's unfortunate that Giovanni and his parents are probably the only ones involved in this who will learn any lessons from this.