The O’Connor Self-Acceptance Project
The Social Pages can admit when it’s wrong. And we’ve been dead wrong about James O’Connor. For a number of weeks now, we’ve been holding James O’Connor up as an archetype of using Twitter to take advantage of professional-player-induced attractiveness to the fairer sex before becoming just another former player struggling to stop the insidious advance of the corporate-lunch-kilograms.
But that’s not it at all.
You see, research out of Western Carolina University is now telling us that narcissistic self-aggrandisement (a.k.a. RTing when anyone talks about how hot you are) can actually hide deep feelings of inferiority. Further, that by expressing narcissistic behaviours (a.k.a. RTing when anyone talks about how they voted for you multiple times for Bachelor of the Year), you are subconsciously attempting to raise your self-esteem.
How did we find out about this?
Well, when friend of The Social Pages, and top Twitter-chick, Lindsay Clement-Meehan (@lindscm), noticed that the banner ad for Swisse vitamins displayed during the Rebels game depicted JOC in what appeared to be a Force jersey, she used her witty way to ask if that was ok with Bachelor No. 1. Given that JOC isn’t quite the cunning linguist and sharp intellect that Quade Cooper is, he misinterpreted her question, and retorted by essentially calling her ugly. (Not the brightest thing to do to anyone, let alone to a sports journo formerly of the Telegraph.)
That this type of response has come during Bachelor Season didn’t escape our attention. Clearly the extreme focus on his looks and ‘eligibility’ to the exclusion of his incredible rugby talent is taking its toll, eroding his foundation of self-belief. As a result, he’s imagining slights on his appearance, and assuming that a question he didn’t understand was calling him ugly. By lashing out, he revealed his vulnerability.
From here on, this is going to be a safe space for James. We know he’s more than just an amazing haircut and dye-job atop the face of an angel and a body that just won’t quit. We don’t want to make him feel uncomfortable by focussing on his tight buttocks, shapely calves, defined pecs and shapely delts. We’re going to make it easier for him to believe tweets like this.
In this regard he has a lot in common with Kate Moss, who once said:
“Modelling can be a bit brain damaging. Starting my own brand was what I needed to do. I only model if there are such good jobs that you don’t want to say no to. All that dressing up makes me say, ‘What do I want to wear?’ and, ‘What do I want to do with Topshop?’ It all kind of leads into the other things.”
Substitute ‘Topshop’ with ‘Snapshift’ and it’s like they share one mind. We’re here for you, James. Our comments section is always open, and our ever-supportive readers are eager to help.
Quade’s Qualities
It’s Quade’s birthday today (or so Twitter has led me to believe). He’s turning 24, which came as quite the surprise to his followers who, it seems, like us, noted the wisdom in his eyes, the compassion in his tweets and the maturity in his every Twitter interaction, and found it hard, nay impossible, to believe such an accomplished man could be so young. Naturally Quade dealt with all the questions with his usual aplomb.
Happy birthday to our favourite peckerhead, Quade.
Doing Digby
During the week Digby was performing his calisthenics when he fell into an awkward 
sexual pose. As you can see from the heat coming off this pairing, she had just finished tearing his shirt from his body when the photo was taken by a stranger walking past.
Klever Kurtley
Kurtley continues to impress with his world view. This week he poses the question: if my team’s home ground is not at the home where I live, is it really a home ground, or should it be considered ‘away’? Hmmm, it gets you thinking, doesn’t it!
Tweets of the week
The Lipman Tweet — named after Michael ‘Lipdogg’ Lipman, who has become the shining light of inappropriateness in his short time on Twitter. Lipdogg had (dis)honourable mentions this week, but the big prize goes to James O’Connor for quoting the tweet of a woman who wants to purchase his sperm.
Pulitzer nominations
In the comments from last week’s post I asked whether people wanted me to include the most interesting Waratahs tweet for the week, regardless of how mind-numbingly dull it was. Well, Social Pagers, prepare yourself for a rib-tickling humdinger from one of their injured superstars.
The things I do for this site…
Interview Bingo
The Rugby Club is stuffing Interview Bingo this week by having the show as a pre-game to the Rebels , so rather than an in-studio guest, we’re doing something different: the post-match interview. Yes, that’s right, tired captains who just want to get away from Kafe, who will say anything they can to end the interview. There’s a card for both the winning and the losing captain, so double the chance of winning! Next week we’ll be back to trying to shove words into their guests’ mouths. Promise.
