The Power of a Hat: When Team Loyalty Goes too Far

On the Fourth of July San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was photographed wearing a Miami Dolphins hat at a party. A twitter account registered under the name of @DolFanBandits tweeted a photo of Kaepernick wearing the hat, and what should have been a mildly amusing incident became a big deal on the internet. Thousands of twitter users responded with hatred and anger to Kaepernick demanding that he apologize for wearing the hat of an opponent. Kaepernick once again caused cyber commotion when he took to Instagram to respond to his fashion critics, posting a picture of his face with the Dolphins hat and the caption: "This the hat y'all mad at? I'm goin wear what I want regardless of what you think, all you need to worry about is the fact that I grind for my teammates and the 49ers! I plan on doin this until they won't let me in the building! #ridiculous #y'allmustbebored." (Frank, 2013)

This entire incident is pointless, as Kaepernick indicated. During a relatively quiet NFL offseason, the media is attempting to create conflict by finding any possible controversy to report on. While it was not a wise decision by Kaepernick from a public relations standpoint it was at the end of the day simply a fashion statement, unless it was all intentional to gain publicity. Although there is an online Global Village, social media users should not take advantage of their limited interaction with players over sites like Twitter to criticize and harass Kaepernick for wearing a Dolphins hat. Kaepernick is still the quarterback of the future for the San Francisco 49ers, and he still is responsible for bringing the 49ers to their first Super Bowl appearance in over ten years.

Colin Kaepernick wasn’t trying to indicate that he would rather play for the Miami Dolphins, he is simply wearing a hat that he thinks looks cool. As stupid as it may seem, that is the only reason he decided to wear the hat of an AFC opponent. However, in this new internet age, even meaningless stories such as this are blown out of proportion, and Colin Kaepernick ends up getting ridiculed for something that happened when his privacy was being invaded anyway. This is an example of how the media takes advantage of its vast resources to stir conflict even when there is none there, simply to increase sales and revenue.

Works Cited

Frank, S. (2013, July 6). Colin Kaepernick defends wearing Miami Dolphins hat, which he didn’t need to do. Retrieved from Yahoo! Sports: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/colin-kaepernick-defends-wearing-dolphins-hat-shouldn-t-144651555.html

 Matthew T. Johnson