During top-ranked Clemson’s 21-20 win over North Carolina on Saturday in the second quarter, the UNC marketing team decided to put Clemson fans on the Jumbotron and poke fun at the Tigers who showed up in mass numbers to help UNC fill Kenan Stadium.
All is fair in love and war, but this particular segment crossed the line and chose to humiliate Tiger fans without much regard for how it came across. I’m all for a good poke at an opponent but this was not it.
Some were less harmful, like “Carolina basketball fan” or “also a Patriots fan,” but others seemed more insensitive and tacky.
The two worst were when they zoomed in on a girl who was most likely a Clemson student with the caption “thinks Clemson is in Georgia,” and focusing on a bigger man and said “thinks the fridge is just another appliance.”
Implying that a young woman is stupid because she goes to Clemson is not acceptable. Not to mention that Clemson University has been ranked as a top-25 public institution for the better part of the 2000s. And showing an overweight man with a fridge joke continues to cross the line.
Also thought that in 2019 we had moved past publicly humiliating them with stereotypes or mocking them for their weight. @ UNC you should be ashamed of whatever tone deaf @GoHeels MKTG staff member came up with that and address the issue.
— Alex Dodd (@alexdoddshow) September 29, 2019
Not all North Carolina fans laughed and many apologized to Tigers for the incident. Clemson fans rightly responded with loud boos for the tasteless and classless move by the marketing team.
https://twitter.com/YourFanGenni/status/1178049871556874247
You would think promotions like this would not exist in 2019 but the marketing team in Chapel Hill proved otherwise. If the goal was to make opposing fans feel unwelcome and carry a negative perspective about the host institution, they got the point across.
Come on Tar Heels. You’re better than that.