After the Knights lost their first game to Elkhorn South at the beginning of the 2023 football season, sophomore Kadin Logan woke up to notifications from his friends about a post on the Elkhorn South “Barstool” account. He frantically pulled up the account on this phone and found the post. Suddenly, feelings of anger and embarrassment washed over him as he read what the Barstool account, which is run anonymously, had posted about him. The posters may have thought they were encouraging friendly banter between the schools, but Logan didn’t see it that way. He felt attacked.
The Elkhorn South Barstool account is modeled off of Barstool Sports, which is a sports news outlet, like ESPN or Sports Illustrated. Barstool is known for its often irreverant coverage of sports, pop culture and entertainment The original Barstool account uses the social media handle
@BarStoolSports and has 17.1 million followers on Instagram and 6.1 million followers on X. Barstool, which caters to a younger audience, has inspired hundreds of off-shoot accounts created to cover athletic content for colleges and high schools.
These Barstool accounts are public pages managed anonymously by a student or group of students. They post sports-related content—both positive and negative—without fear of consequences, as their identities remain concealed.
While most posts are light-hearted and fun, sometimes these accounts are used to intimidate or tear down people using vulgar language or innapropriate jokes.
A senior at Southeast, who helps manage the LSE Barstool account and wishes to remain anonymous because of the implications of these jokes and how they could affect their reputation, says that Barstool is really meant to encourage more friendly rivalry between schools and get more fans excited about games.
“Sports get competitive and [we need] to be able to argue with other schools to prove how [our] school is better because you can’t do it on the main Instagram accounts for the school,” the manager said.
According to a 2023 Pioneer Press article, these accounts have gone too far, citing how an account near Plain City, Ohio, “posted content comparing an abled player to a person with down syndrome, all because he was playing in their upcoming match”. This is just one example which shows the severity of these accounts and what they can become.
According to the current LSE Barstool account manager, their posts do far less trash talking than in previous years. In past years, Southeast started things with other schools that led them to be one of the more controversial Barstools in the Nebraska area.
Last year, Southeast added to the drama of the Nebraska Barstools and went after a couple of Millard West players, including current North Dakota State player Jackson Williams, after Southeast football beat them in 2023.
Logan was attacked by the Elkhorn South Barstool when he was a freshman, which didn’t make him feel very good. He was a freshman on varsity, making him a prime target for a Barstool account.
“I feel like, because they see me as a vulnerable player on the team, they took advantage of it because I was a good player,” Logan said.
According to the account manager, the current LSE Barstool is avoiding controversy and is just focused on winning.
“There’s not really a point to starting any drama,” the manager said.
Other accounts, like those associated with Lincoln East and Lincoln Southwest, are sparking plenty of controversy, including posting multiple pictures and videos before their respective games against Southeast. This includes posting things that start arguments between East and Southwest. Posts from these accounts called out members of dance and cheer teams, called out athletes who may have transferred from one Lincoln school to another and used vulgar language to denigrate opposing teams.
“Sometimes I see posts of the other Barstools about some kid and, like, at first it’s funny, then you kind of think about it, it’s like, wow, that probably really embarrassed the kid that got posted about,” the Southeast Barstool manager said.
This toxicity in the Lincoln community has led to much more hatred and made students worry that their reputation can be ruined by a Twitter or Instagram account. These accounts have even started to post scare tactics towards the teams they play in the upcoming weeks.
“[These accounts] try to get in the other team’s head, because if someone posts an embarrassing video of you, you’re gonna go into the game [thinking] ‘everyone’s seen this thing of me’, and it’s gonna hopefully throw you off your game,” the Southeast Barstool manager said.
The effect on the community is evident and has caused toxicity to be normalized in some aspects. Students often believe that they won’t have repercussions from anything they might post now because of accounts like Barstools.
However, the LSE Barstool managers believes accounts aren’t meant to completely hurt students’ feelings. Rather, they try to add a spirit of competitiveness to each game played. Sometimes, he said, the jokes go further than an account manager may mean for them to, but ultimately they are just jokes.
“I think that the posts aren’t really personal. Sometimes it goes a little too far. Someone sends one thing that the other Barstool doesn’t like. It’ll eventually just keep getting worse and worse,” the Southeast Barstool manager said.
Barstool accounts are here to stay and whether they stay more civil or get more heated, like in past years, is simply up to the account managers. These managers can control a lot with things they post. The community will either come together or be against each other once again.
