On May 26, 2015, ESPN personality Stephen A Smith tweeted the following:
Two years later, we still have no idea what he intended us to take a look at, but Smith’s busted tweet remains a vibrant meme. To the extent that the allure of any meme can be explained, Smith’s tweet was unpacked in this New York article from May, which includes solid historical context, a couple deft parodies, and an amusing investigative angle where the author emails ESPN’s PR, “to see if they could help me out.” No such luck.
But now Smith has done it again. Behold:
Support our brother tonight World Wide in iTunes people.#CantStopWontStop https://t.co/7kjZBY5BNm
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) July 10, 2017
#CantStopWontStop refers to Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, a new documentary about Diddy’s Bad Boy Records label, but could also refer to Stephen A. Smith’s continued practice of mangling his tweets.
Two things of note here, before we return to our Mondays: One, the filename IMG_9993.MOV.mov. “IMG” would imply an image file, maybe a photo—but the .mov extension (to say nothing of the double .MOV.mov extension!) is a QuickTime video format. This makes the 2017 Smith tweet even more elusive than the original variety, which was immediately discernible as a JPEG; what could he possibly have been trying to share? We await further reporting on this point.
And finally, if you click through to the replies on this tweet, you can see people reenacting the original replies to “TAke a look, y’all,” starting with:
We’ll see you in another two years, god willing.