“Remember, there’re kids around,” I said, resting a hand on his bicep. He flinched in response, moving away from me to bend down and get the ball.
“Any advice on how to ignore him when he’s literally throwing sh— things at me?”
“Grin and bear it?” I suggested, shrugging even though he was facing away from me. He looked down at the ball, shoulders slumped.
“Right,” he grumbled as he stood up. “Maybe I’ll give him a taste of his own medicine.”
Kean spun the ball in his hands a few times before walking over to the goal, the opposite direction from Brooker. The other man shouted back, the kids laughing at the childish antics of these two grown men they looked up to, a few of them running over to Kean asking for the ball. Kean ignored Brooker’s cries and tossed the ball out to the first kid who went over. While that kid passed to a friend, Kean leaned over to another one to whisper something. The kid got a near devilish grin and ran over to the others. Within minutes, the whole team was in on the new game, keep-away from Brooker.
While playing with the kids, Kean had the biggest smile I’d ever seen from him.
I snapped a picture, the part of my brain that searched for media angles quiet for once because I wasn’t taking this picture for Kean’s profile. I was taking it for me.
A Trending Meme
At the Whip Snap Cup, a youth soccer charity tournament held at Miramar Beach, a new meme was captured featuring professional soccer player, Olli Kean, the Destin Dastards goal keeper. This meme consists of two photos. The first of Kean being yelled at by a woman, who was later revealed to be Kean’s PA, Kodi Davey. The second image is of Kean holding a soccer ball, looking down at it sadly. The meme is used to reference something minor happening and having a disproportionate reaction to it, like taking your ball home because no one will play with you.
A few popular examples of the meme are: getting yelled at by your mom/hiding in your room until she calms down; getting caught sneaking snacks into the theater/having to toss them in the trash; getting yelled at for being a nerd/when you just asked if they wanted to play D&D.
The original meme hit one million shares within an hour of it being posted.
A Coaching Session
Kodi
“Oh, this is bad. This is really fucking bad,” I muttered to myself, sitting on the empty stand. The tournament wrapped up about thirty minutes ago, so I’ve been sifting through all the photos I took. AndafterI tagged potential content, I went online to see Kean’s meme trending.
God, I’m gonna have to explain what a meme is to this man, aren’t I?
“What’s wrong?”
I looked up to see the man in question sit next to me, in a shirt that was so sweaty it clung to his skin. Rude.
I turned my laptop around to show him his meme. He leaned over, squinting at the screen.
“What am I looking at?”
“Are you familiar with the word ‘meme’?” I didn’t even need him to answer, I could tell based on how his brows pinched together. “It’s an internet thing. They take a picture and put text on it that’s … relatable or funny.”
“And it’s funny to …” He pressed a finger to the screen, dragging it across as he read the text out loud. “‘Be scolded to clean your room when you just wanna play soccer’?”
“That’s not the best one, but I did say relatable.”
“Hmm. But why is it a bad thing? Don’t these internet trends not last that long?”
“It depends. But either way, it’s not good for your image. And if Hansen sees it, he’ll be pissed I was —” Just as I brought him up, an email notification popped up in the bottom right corner of my screen. The subject line read, ‘The meme’ and the preview said, ‘I want to see you and Kean in my office first thing Monday.’
“God fucking damn it,” I hissed, letting my head fall back so I could stare at the sky and fight the oncoming tears. “I swear to god, if I lose this job I’m gonna —”
“I told you that’s not gonna happen,” Kean interrupted. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll explain that to him.”
“That won’t work, his whole problem is … my unprofessional behavior. You taking the blame for this won’t change his opinion.”
“Did that one fight really make him think that little of you?” Kean asked, his head tilting like a confused little puppy. Well, not puppy, but an old, grumpy pup. All dogs were puppies, no matter their age.
“Well, it’s because …” I chewed at my bottom lip, unsure how to tell Kean about my embarrassing history or if I evenwantedto tell him. It might help him understand how royallyfuckedI was in terms of keeping this job. But then he might get curious and look up the video and that … well if I could somehow keepthis job, it wouldn’t make dealing with Kean any easier, that’s for sure.
But maybe I could give him a half truth, just enough so he’d understand the situation.
