Media Monster

Jay Mariotti Arrested, Internet Points And Laughs (UPDATE)

Jay Mariotti, known for being loud, abrasive, and having once had the mullet at left, was arrested last night. According to the linked L.A. Times report, it’s on charges of domestic disturbance. The internet is, in general, not weeping for his plight.

UPDATE: Mariotti’s free, released on $50,000 bail. (H/T Deadspin)

The rest of the original post is below.

Mariotti is one of the most frequent guests on ESPN punching bag Around The Horn, and is a columnist for Fanhouse. He also inspired this website, demonstrating that perhaps his prime talent is getting people riled up.

Some are pointing out that Mariotti is innocent until proven guilty. This is indeed true. Despite this, we’re seeing tweets like this. And this. And this. And this. And this. (Oh, hell, here’s Gregg Doyel’s entire Twitter feed.)

In one of those linked tweets, Doyel brought up another salient point: domestic violence = unfunny. But, of course, he then said it’s unfunny unless “Mariotti is accused.” And it’s true, people aren’t laughing at domestic violence, they’re getting schadenfreude-related joy over Mariotti’s arrest only.

But wow – Mariotti sure does know how to provoke some over-the-top reactions, doesn’t he? And stepping back from the visceral reactions, the whole thing IS pretty sad/unfunny if Mariotti did what he’s being charged with.

But Mariotti is essentially in the business of getting on people’s nerves. That means if he does (or just potentially does) something wrong, he’ll get called out – gleefully. Sure enough, that’s just what happened. And we can’t believe we’re saying this, but after today’s news, we can say the level of hate for Jay Mariotti exceeds what we thought was out there. And we knew a lot of it was out there.

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