Forget #ELIte. That New York Giants hype was so yesterday. Tuesday’s trending topic in New York City sports is focused on basketball, where there’s a new hashtag for a new star: #linsanity.
Inspired by the unlikely heroics of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin (@JLin7), whose 28 points and eight assists against the Utah Jazz earned the struggling Knicks a much needed, second consecutive win, the hashtag has become a rallying cry for a perpetually disgruntled fan base that now has its first reason to get excited aboutl since superstar Carmelo Anthony first joined the team last March.
The difference between those two players, as CNBC Sports Business Reporter Darren Rovell tweeted Tuesday morning, “The Knicks pay Jeremy Lin $11,801 per game. The Knicks pay Carmelo Anthony $11,763 every 2 1/2 in-game MINUTES.”
Lin comes cheap, but that’s not all there is to like about the Harvard graduate and former D-league journeyman. On Twitter, fans have sung his praises since the moment his desperation three-pointer in the fourth quarter slipped through the bottom of the net last night.
“The Knicks have been dour and depressive all season,” tweeted The Nation writer Dave Zirin. “Life if ‘Eddie’ was directed by Ingmar Bergman. Jeremy Lin is a bolt of joy.”
Knicks fan @JeffTagle agreed, tweeting “If I’m going to join a bandwagon, it’s the Jeremy Lin one!”
Lin’s heroics launched over 3,000 tweets in the past 12 hours, according to Topsy, a social media analytics tool, but not every tweet was centered around his basketball prowess. Naturally, considering Twitter community’s penchant for humor, a solid amount of the conversation centered about Lin’s Taiwanese heritage.
“The new measuring stick for Asian American males is named Jeremy Lin,” tweeted @MINAtheFILIPINA. “6’3″, Harvard grad, and Knicks point guard. Asian moms gotta love that!”
@HoneyLKCocaine echoed similar sentiment, tweeting “Jeremy Lin is that Ninja,” a comment that received 116 retweets in four hours.
The best joke? It’s a tossup between @ImprovAsylum’s tweet (“Jeremy Lin has proven that Asians can drive.”) and notable hoops pundit @NotBillWalton’s priceless insight, which The Daily Dot has not taken the time to fact check: “Jeremy Lin is a huge pickup for the Knicks. Not only is he scoring a ton of points but he is also tutoring his teammates children in math.”
As for Lin himself, New York’s newly minted talk of the town was both gracious in victory and humble in stature, tweeting “God is good during our ups and our downs. Glad we got the win!! Thanks to @landryfields for letting me crash on his couch last night lol”.
Photo from Facebook