The 2014 Deadspin Bear Of The Year

Deadspin is pleased to announce our 2014 Bear of the Year. After a great deal of consideration and deliberation, we arrived at a clear choice: Genius Bear Who Was Too Smart And Strong For Bullshit-Ass Electric-Deer Gag.

Genius Bear Who Was Too Smart And Strong For Bullshit-Ass Electric-Deer Gag is a very good bear. That much is obvious. But Genius Bear Who Was Too Smart And Strong For Bullshit-Ass Electric-Deer Gag is more than just a bear. When he ripped that deer carcass away from the cruel trap that had been set for him, he became a buttress against the creeping inequity of a world that is not his.

The year 2014 in the world of humans was a bleak one, full of oppression, war, tragedy, and injustice. The oceans rose. Innocent people died. Citizens were brutalized by state-sanctioned goon squads. The rent remained too damn high.

A bear’s world is also a brutal one, but it is not supposed to be a place where injustice is found. The laws of nature are unkind, but they are fair. This is why it was so offensive when some shit-ass scientist decided to lay an electrified trap for Genius Bear Who Was Too Smart And Strong For Bullshit-Ass Electric-Deer Gag: It was an attempt to smuggle dishonesty into the bear’s world.

Here was a bear who had found some meat. That meat belonged to him so long as a bigger, stronger bear did not come and take it from him. These are the simple laws that all bears understand, and so Genius Bear Who Was Too Smart And Strong For Bullshit-Ass Electric-Deer Gag attempted to claim his meat.

He was not prepared to have his prize kept from him by shocks of electricity, obstacles foreign to a world in which subterfuge and injustice have no place. He was unprepared, but he was not undeterred. Genius Bear Who Was Too Smart And Strong For Bullshit-Ass Electric-Deer Gag rose higher than ever should have been expected of him, disabling the scientist’s trap and making off with the life-giving deer meat.

Genius Bear Who Was Too Smart And Strong For Bullshit-Ass Electric-Deer Gag’s message to his unseen tormenter—to all of us, really—is a simple one: “Your bullshit has no place here. I’m eatin’.”

The 2013 Deadspin Bear Of The Year: Bicycle-Riding Bear Who Ate a Monkey