Back to mocking Tim Tebow: Clickbait update you didn't know that you needed
Fans of stories about sports and religion (and sex, I guess) this is your lucky day.
The tabloid stars at The New York Daily News have managed to cram what may be a record number of bad puns and petty shots into a new report on the alleged end of the rumored dating relationship between Tim Tebow and former Miss USA.
There are, however, two pieces of serious information that you will not find in this designed for clickbait report. Hold that thought.
Let's start with the obligatory snark attack headline:
Tim Tebow still can’t find the end zone as girlfriend Olivia Culpo breaks it off over lack of sex
And into the story itself. Can you predict the potential family-newspaper-level puns for this sports and religion report?
For once, it's not Tim Tebow who's having trouble scoring -- it's his girlfriend.
Confidenti@l is told the QB's model squeeze Olivia Culpo has dumped him after a two-month relationship -- because he won't have sex with her. The former Miss USA, who was first reported to be seeing Tebow in early October, has told friends that she can't deal with the famously abstinent star's nookie-less lifestyle.
"He was really into her," a source close to the model told us, "he was sending her love letters and cute notes and professing his love for her."
Alas, Culpo took a knee.
Readers are later told that Tebow remains "pretty adamant" about the whole abstinence from "sex thing."
Now I know that the editors that published this had no interest in the actual details of this story, including the beliefs of either person involved in this celebrity match.
But at some point, might it have been good to mention that Tebow's stand is based on actual Christian convictions and that these beliefs are shared by plenty of other people (Pope Francis leaps to mind) in a wide variety of mainstream religions. Or, at this point, do journalists no longer even need to mention factual details? Tebow is a religious fanatic and that is that.
Which brings me to another point. I would also assume that Culpo has some history of involvement in a church or religious group, since it's safe to assume that Tebow would be interested in a woman with faith ties that bind. Might someone have asked?
No way. That assumes that this is actually a report based on information, rather than shards of broken glass taken from gossip sites.
The Daily News did note that Culpo had been successful -- if that is the right word -- in a previous relationship with another evangelical celebrity, one Nick Jonas. You might recall that he was known for wearing a "promise ring" symbolizing his commitment to waiting until marriage to have sex.
The pair started dating in the summer of 2013, and by September 2014 the one-time Jonas Brothers member told HuffPo Live that he had taken the ring off.
"This is a real growth in me and not something I'm doing anymore," he said adding, "But I've got my set of values, things that are important to me now at this point in my life and that's all that matters."
So what is the point, other than clicks? Is the tabloid (or even mainstream media) assumption that when it comes to bashing Tebow all bets are off? Just do it.