A Detroit Free Press front page after the NFC Championship Game loss. A Detroit Free Press front page after the NFC Championship Game loss. (@freep on Twitter.)
NewspapersNFLTwitterBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Sports results certainly have the ability to impact how people feel. Sometimes, they even impact how corporate social media accounts feel. And the latest example of that came Monday, following the Detroit Lions’ heartbreaking 34-31 loss to the San Francisco 49ers Sunday despite a 24-7 halftime lead. On Monday, Sesame Street character Elmo asked, “How is everyone doing?” on Twitter/X, and the account for The Detroit Free Press took a break from their story feed to chime in with “We’ve been better, Elmo”:

What’s perhaps particularly amusing about that is how it came right after two stories on the Lions’ loss hit the newspaper’s feed:

Detroit Free Press tweets on the Lions, and checking in with Elmo.
Detroit Free Press tweets on the Lions, and checking in with Elmo. (@freep on Twitter.)

But the Free Press was far from the only sports engagement with that Elmo check-in tweet. Here are a few others:

Meanwhile, the Free Press was not the only account upset about the Lions:

And even one 49ers fan checked in:

The most appropriate response to Elmo overall may have been the user who brought up the everything-is-on-fire part of the “Darkest Timeline” from Community:

At any rate, it was certainly funny to see an official newspaper account chime in with a tweet of “their” feelings after a loss to a Twitter/X account representing a character from Sesame Street. There may be no cheering in the press box, but there’s undoubtedly some city-wide mourning on social media.

[Image from @freep on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz