Thursday, November 19, 2009

So About This "Tebow Girlfriend" Thing

By now you've probably heard about the Playboy.com pictures with one Erin Drewes, nude except for body-paint of the Florida No. 15 jersey, complete with "Tebow" on the back.

Drewes, of course, became Internet famous for the false rumor that she was Tim Tebow's girlfriend, after she showed up in a picture with Tebow.

Bloggers posted about it, and -- thanks to that -- she became the default result when the curious would type "Tebow girlfriend" into Google. Which happens a lot, apparently. (I am actually shocked that "Tebow girlfriend" or "Erin Drewes" weren't Top 100 on Google Trends today.)

Now consider the absurdity: A woman who isn't even Tim Tebow's girlfriend -- just someone mistaken for Tim Tebow's girlfriend -- lands a photo deal on Playboy.com.

And people still question whether a blog entirely dedicated to covering the Tebow phenomenon has enough material to support itself?

2 comments:

D said...

It has to do with the girl being smoking hot not tebow. And yes alot of athletes have hot girl friends. The same thing happen to wayne elliot's girl, and brady quinn's.

Matthew said...

I think there's a distinction to be made between the kinds of cultural currency at work, here. Drewes's Playboy thing is indeed a sign that the Tebow phenomenon is pretty intense. But, as you yourself note, "Tebow girlfriend" and "Erin Drewes" weren't Top 100 on Google Trends today, which makes me wonder if the Tebow phenomenon isn't more of a top-down thing (i.e. the media telling the world, incessantly, that someone is of mythical proportions) than the than anything else.

Of course there's enough material for your other blog, there, because there are a lot of Florida fans. But all the Tebow stuff tends to strike me more as people higher on the media food chain trying to force-feed me something as being more important than it really is. Playboy, one company, says this Drewes is worth looking at. Millions of people searching the internet apparently, at least for one day, don't seem to think much of her one way or the other.

My point is: I just wonder how many real converts to the phenomenon exist, outside of UF fans, who would certainly already be both well aware of it and fully on board, even if it were not given such excessive media attention. My guess is not terribly many, because hyperlocalization has a limitation in that you can't make people really, truly care about something in which they don't already have a vested interest.

Do I find Tebow interesting? Sure. Am I going to think as much about him after he's out of college as I do about former players of whatever team I happen to root for? Nope. Take a poll among non-Gator fans, and I don't think my feelings will be in the minority. I don't question whether your blog will have enough material, I just question how "epic" the whole thing really is.

All that aside, I actually still really like the general concept of the Tebow blog, which I think represents a more important phenomenon than Tebow himself. So I'll give you props for that; I just wish you were going all hyperlocal on something I really cared about. Oh, well.