#BradyonBuffalo

Yesterday morning, the story broke that a very mean meanie of a man-child who plays catch for a living deigned to say something critical of our fair burgh. As usually happens in these situations (e.g., hockey players who quite correctly criticize how dead our downtown is after business hours), our local media and commentariat freak the hell out, defending to the death the mistaken notion that Buffalo is a world-class city.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164706823868391424″]

Seeing that Channel 2 and 4 were turning this into the top story, I started the #BradyonBuffalo meme.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164729090367168513″]

The purpose of it – and most people got it – was not to mock Brady, but to mock our community sensitivity and over-reaction to what a Tom Brady thinks of Buffalo. Here’s a multi-millionaire superstar about to play in his fifth Super Bowl. He’s won three of them already. He lives in a world-class city – a Boston that just thirty years ago was a parochially-minded, predominately Catholic, faded and crumbling city with a shrinking tax base and a massive inferiority complex. Today, Boston is a world-class city, and Buffalo isn’t. It’s a simple fact that we should just accept.

Take, for instance, how Channel 4 reported on Wednesday’s meme:

Brady’s comments started a flurry of conversation on Twitter, with Buffalo Twitter users using the hashtag #BradyonBuffalo to mock Brady’s comments.

No, we used it to mock Buffalonians’ oversensitivity to outsiders’ criticism of our region. We used it to poke fun at the predictable top-story treatment this would get in all local media, complete with angry reactions from tourism officials and political figures.

You know what? With three exceptions – the Mansion at Delaware, the Hampton Inn on Chippewa, and the Embassy Suites at the Avant, Buffalo hotels are pretty crappy. I mean, have you set foot in the last Adams Mark on Earth yet? Leave it to a concrete eyesore in Buffalo to cling to a dead chain’s trademark. Tim Graham in the Buffalo News is, so far, the only local mainstream media type to get it exactly right, pointing out the small number of local hotels that can accommodate a football team (hint: the Mansion isn’t one of them).

Here are some of my favorites. Stop being such a whiny crybaby, Buffalo. Suck it up.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164749236821434368″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/ChrisSmithAV/status/164738559474012160″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/j_kruk/status/164730321735135234″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164733731523919873″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/DerekPunaro/status/164733931818717185″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164733607246704640″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164732215677300738″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/buffalopundit/status/164800859295858688″]

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9 comments

  • The response to the overreaction was a bigger overreaction.

    I’m sorry, but at a setting like the super bowl, with hundreds of US Media outlets there and dozens more internation outlets, the games biggest star on either team took a shot at buffalo with millions watching. Whether you like it or not, its news locally

    The funny thing is, atleast on twitter. Those outraged and people being “outraged” out numbered those upset with brady by about 5 to 1.

    The comments rubbed me the wrong way, but I’m not pissed at Brady. I’m also not pissed at people who were upset by it.

    • The response to the overreaction was to make fun of it; I didn’t see “outrage” at the media outrage, and I singled out the Buffalo News’ Tim Graham for getting it right.

  • Buffalo: Our Skin Is Thinner Than Yours Is!

  • “Frank Lloyd Wright? Try Frank Lloyd WRONG!”
    Ok, that one made my morning. Kudos.

  • When someone like Brady points out the failings of my city, rather than shoot the messenger, I get angrier at folks like Byron Brown, Chris Collins, Paladino, etc. You know, the countless politicians that make sure the Tom Bradys of the world are correct.

    Then I get mad at the apathetic and/or clueless citizens that keep voting these hacks into office.

  • BRADY CAN KISS MY BIG DAGO ASS!

  • thank goodness the buffalo twitter police stepped in to mock the mocking of buffalo. outrage over outrage – what a way to spend the day.

  • I like the point in your article and your selection of tweets to highlight. From what I’ve seen in the last couple of months Buffalo residents are very negative about their city, but respond quickly to any external slights.

    My one issue with the article is that when describing Boston the writer chose to use “Catholic” as an insult. If you don’t think it’s out of place try replacing it with “Muslim” or “Black” and see how the sentence sounds…

    • Excuse me, but can you explain how “Catholic” was used as an insult?

      Boston that just thirty years ago was a parochially-minded, predominately Catholic, faded and crumbling city with a shrinking tax base and a massive inferiority complex.

      The point was to compare 70s-era Boston to contemporary Buffalo, not to “insult” “Catholics”.

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