When Should You Tweet At An Athlete? A Guide To Not Being A Dick

The Minnesota Golden Gophers upended the No. 24 Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday, giving Minnesota its first win over the Cornhuskers since 1960. The game also gave us the following teachable moment:

This is a pretty extreme example of how not to tweet at a player of your favorite team when said team has just lost. But let's not demonize Mr. Green specifically, because this dumb shit happens every day, and we want to tackle the bigger problem. (Green also apologized profusely.) Fans get frustrated with the performance of a player or team and tweet ill-advised things at them. Thanks, technology! In an attempt to minimize these instances, here's a helpful guide to help you figure out if you should tweet something at an athlete.

Do tweet at an athlete if ...

• You want to congratulate him or her for playing well.

• The athlete is getting married and you want to send your blessings.

• The athlete is holding some trivia contest with a prize, and you think you know the answer.

• The athlete is looking for some good banana bread recipes, and you know of a great one that you want to share.

• The athlete has some opinions on the symbolism in Breaking Bad's series finale and wants to hold an open discussion about it.

• The athlete is Donte' Stallworth, and he is saying something commendably intelligent about extrajudicial killings via drone.

Do not tweet at an athlete if ...

• The athlete did not perform well enough for your fantasy team.

• The athlete performed well, but the team lost, but it still feels like his fault.

• The athlete is Donovan McNabb.

• You're a racist.

• The athlete was injured during the game and didn't return, but it didn't look like it hurt that much on TV, and you want to let the athlete know that he's a pussy.

• You feel like you have some really good thoughts on what the team should do differently, play-wise.

• Your team lost, and one of the players had to take his blood-puking dog to the vet, and you feel that you can tie it all together in less than 140 characters.

Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images. Screencap via @edsbs