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If you routinely interact with strangers on the internet, you’ve almost certainly seen your masculinity questioned or had a homophobic slur hurled your way at some point in time, and if things have ever gotten particularly heated, there’s a very good chance you’ve been challenged to meet your virtual adversary in person so you can engage in some good, old-fashioned fisticuffs.
Most people decline to prove the person who tells them “You won’t fight me” wrong but there are some exceptions and there isn’t a single one more notable than the saga known as “Meet Me In Temecula,” an all-time moment in NBA Twitter history that transpired on Christmas Day in 2014 when an argument between two fans led to one of the guys driving to the California city where the other man said he’d meet him to throw hands.
However, basketball fans aren’t the only people prone to getting into heated debates in that corner of the Twitterverse, as some of the players who see their skills and merits questioned on a daily basis have trouble resisting the urge to get into the mud to defend their honor.
There is perhaps no one who has more of a tendency to hop into other people’s mentions when they show up in his than Kevin Durant, who has a long and storied history of firing back at fans and occasionally challenging them to show up to a game to criticize him to his face.
There’s currently no mechanism in place to easily facilitate that kind of interaction, but according to NBC Sports, KD’s propensity to get into online beefs during his time with the Warriors led to Steve Kerr dreaming up a potential solution that would allow both sides to settle their differences.
Kerr outlined his plan to Ethan Strauss of The Athletic, who wrote about it in his new book The Victory Machine, saying:
Kerr would wonder if there was a way to combat the modern onslaught on the psyche. Maybe, just maybe, if he could it all over, the power of actualization might defeat certain demons.
“I have this idea to somebody bring in a few of their detractors from Twitter,” Kerr said of the Twitter trolls. “Like actually find them and bring them, set the fans in front of them. ‘Kevin, this is Joe from Portola Valley. Joe said that you were a loser yesterday. Now look at him. Look at him carefully. Do you really care what he thinks?’ ”
This time, by bringing what’s written into reality, Kerr might reveal its falseness as opposed to its self-evident truth.
“The flip side is, Joe would be completely embarrassed,” Kerr said of his plan. “He’d be like, ‘I can’t believe I wrote that. I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. Can I have your autograph?’ “
It’d currently be a tad tricky to make this happen based on the current state of in-person interactions, but once the world reaches the point where they’re allowed again, I can only hope someone figures out a way to make this a thing.