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Sep 02, 2023

This Life Isn't Good For Baby Gronk

The internet capsized into madness this week when two of Gen Z's anointed

The internet capsized into madness this week when two of Gen Z's anointed overlords, Livvy Dunne and Baby Gronk, created a well-acted college football commitment video that likely violates all manner of NCAA recruiting policies. Mankind found a glimmer of hope in the utterly bewildered backlash to their video, as many voiced their confusion.

TikTok user @hoopify, who apparently plays lacrosse at UMass Lowell—a team that lost each of its games this season, each one—created a trademark TikTok summary video of their viral meeting, replete with language that sounds like a marketing campaign for children's toy cars that smash and bash and wow and zoom!

It was to this summary video that many said… what the fuck?

I'm not here to mock the way the youngsters talk, or how they present themselves on the internet. We already know you kids don't want to work so why should we care that you're putting shit on the internet that will adversely impact your employment opportunities down the road? Go for it. Ruin your lives. The world is coming to an end anyway.

Still, I feel a bit weird about this whole Baby Gronk kid:

It all feels a bit like this kid is simply a puppet for some clout-chasing handler. He doesn't show a single inch of emotion in ANY of his pictures of posts. And apparently, this is intentional. From his father:

"I broke him."

Uh, don't brag about that dude. You're talking about your 10-year-old human son. I'm pretty sure that orchestrating a box jump workout that ended in battered and bloodied shins is the sort of thing that child protective services might flag.

All these corny vids of him talking shit are tough:

Clearly, he's being spoon fed these lines. I can't help but wonder if, after take number 30, he asks the cameraperson "can I just go get ice cream with my friends instead? I'm a child."

Then there are these totally inappropriate efforts to link a 10-year-old romantically to Livvy Dunne:

Based on these posts, I can't believe Livvy and/or her publicist agreed to work with the Baby Gronk team. Again, he's 10. She's 20. All of this is… unsettling.

Point is, I don't think any of this is good for this kid. Based on his stone-faced delivery, the absence of any childhood joy you might expect to see on the face of a 10-year-old boy playing sports, and the desperate efforts to keep this kid at the top of the zeitgeist, I feel like this is going in the wrong direction. I don't know where it leads but I just hope the kid gets to make a few choices for himself. For the likelihood that it all plays out the way his team drew it up? The chances that he keeps growing, gaining speed and skill, and gets to attend a top D1 football program? All while ignoring the weird pseudo-reality created around him for social media relevance?

Slim.