Rule No. 1 is, as always, never tweet. But if you’re going to tweet, just remember that if you’re not going to delete them, those tweets are always there waiting to be discovered once you become famous.
Bally Sports NFL/CFB correspondent and host Annie Agar was reminded of all that this weekend when old tweets about Colin Kaepernick and other people of color went viral.
Agar has had a meteoric rise in the sports media world over the last year. Her NFL/college football Zoom meeting parody videos caught the attention of plenty of sports fans during the pandemic and she parlayed that into a role as an NFL and college football correspondent and host with Bally Sports last May. She also earned an enormous social media following across various accounts, including Twitter.
That’s why it’s a bit surprising that some of her old tweets that have just been sitting there this entire time only recently resurfaced, or at least went viral on a larger scale. The impetus for the reveal may have been an interaction between Agar and Eli Apple’s mom over a tweet she made about him after the Super Bowl. (Update: Turns out, #JagsTwitter may have been the ones to do it after Agar took a shot at the Jaguars).
The tweets in question include saying that Seattle Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez should straighten out his hat because MLB is “not the hood” from 2013, a bit about many NFL players being in jail from 2014, and a negative response to Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest during the national anthem in 2016.
Wow this is something pic.twitter.com/RQbSpsgAbl
— J (@JTIVHeisman) February 20, 2022
Naturally, there were two prevailing camps on Twitter after the tweets went viral. One side noted a pattern of “jokes” and commentary by a white person at the expense of people of color in sports, an all-too-common refrain that we see in the old tweet discovery process. Another side cited that Agar, who was a teenager at the time of the tweets, deserved the opportunity to not be defined by these youthful indiscretions because “who among us…”
After being gone all day in a scene reminiscent of the Justine Sacco incident, Agar returned to Twitter Sunday evening to apologize for the tweets.
I want to apologize for the insensitive tweets from my past. They were written when I was a teenager and do not reflect who I am today. I have the utmost respect for the athletes and teams I cover. I hope you can forgive teenage me and we can get back to laughing together again♥️
— Annie Agar (@AnnieAgar) February 21, 2022
“I want to apologize for the insensitive tweets from my past,” wrote Agar. “They were written when I was a teenager and do not reflect who I am today. I have the utmost respect for the athletes and teams I cover. I hope you can forgive teenage me and we can get back to laughing together again.”
No official word from Bally Sports on the matter but we’re sure there’s going to be a lot of learning, a lot of listening, a lot of growing, etc., etc.
