When I was growing up in Massachusetts, you weren’t allowed to drive other people or be on the roads past midnight in the first six months you had your license. So, on the day I got mine, I naturally put a few friends in my car, went to IHOP at 11:30 p.m., and ate pancakes slathered with overly sweetened whipped cream.
I came home around 12:40 in the morning to find my dad waiting up for me. He shook his head and said, “I’m just really, really disappointed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
I’m telling you this because after the Patriots blew out the Titans in a playoff game that felt like it lasted 30 days, I finally understood what it felt like to be my dad in that moment twelve years ago. As I stared at the latest edition of Tom Brady’s fake newspaper that he posts to Instagram after every win, I whispered softly to my phone, “I’m just really, really disappointed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
I don’t know who I was talking to. Maybe to myself, maybe to Brady, maybe to the artist, a guy who goes by D.K., or maybe to the Social Media Guy in charge of Brady’s accounts. Maybe to the universe. All I know is that looking at these makes me feel like I’ve just overdosed on Tide Pods, even though Rob Gronkowski told me not to.
Ever since Brady told reporters there would be a big reveal as to what’s going on with the TB Times at the end of the season, I’ve scoured these strange posts for a narrative that makes sense. I’ve gone down rabbit holes of Bill Hader’s acting career on IMDB.com in the hopes that it would explain why he’s in some of the comics. I’ve gone back through year’s worth of Brady’s social media to trace storylines. I’ve stalked people on Instagram to track down who’s making these things. I’ve taken a magnifying glass to my computer screen in an effort to find the crocodile hidden in every image. I’ve noodled around in the back-end HTML of a quarterback’s fake newspaper’s website in the hopes that it would explain something.
It hasn’t. None of it has. And at this point, after hitting dead end after dead end in this very important and worthwhile investigation, I’m somewhat at a loss.
So are a lot of Pats fans. I watched Saturday’s playoff game at a bar in Williamsburg and asked people decked out in Pats gear if they followed Brady’s weird social media and had any ideas as to who or what Croc represents.
“Who?” asked a guy named Ryan.
“That crocodile that shows up in every comic,” I said. “That sometimes has dreadlocks and sometimes is wearing a trench coat.”
“Oh, right, that,” he said. “No, I have no idea what the fuck is going on with that. It’s batshit insane.”
“It’s gotten more and more psychedelic,” said a guy named Mark.
“Do you feel like you’re on acid when you look at the pictures?” I asked him.
“Yeah, a little,” he said.
“I have no idea what any of this is,” said a woman named Olivia. “And I actually think it’s super strange. Like, why?”
Like why indeed. Let’s take this latest image, for example. I don’t think that analyzing it will get us anywhere, and I’m feeling pretty defeated about the whole thing, but let’s dive on in anyway. When you’re already at the bottom of the ocean, sometimes the only thing you can do is keep holding your breath. If there are any through lines here, I’m going to find them.
Here we have Nate Solder and Matthew Slater, who are depicted as Hermes and Poseidon, respectively. We know this because their togas say HERMES and POSEIDON on them. Tennessee is the Titans, and the Titans in Greek myth are a race of gods. Hermes’ grandfather was Atlas, who was a Titan.
Hermes was born after the Titanomachy, a 10-year war between the Olympians and the Titans, which the Titans lost. He was the messenger of the gods and was able to move between the human and the divine to relay missives. He was also the god of boundaries and the “transgression of boundaries.” Perhaps this is a nod at Brady’s desire to be an immortal football god among men. Perhaps it’s a cheeky nod at all the “rules” the Patriots have supposedly “broken” by supposedly “cheating.” Perhaps I am reading way too much into this.
I’m not sure why Slater is Poseidon. A lot of the comics have been taking place underwater, specifically in a lair beneath the sea off the coast of Miami, where Brady and Croc found the plans to a giant, secret laser an evil guy is building (after I typed that sentence, I reread it and was like, “Oh god, what am I doing with my life?”).
However, this doesn’t explain the blue Titan kneeling at Solder’s feet, who looks like one of the Smurfs had sex with Gollum from Lord of the Rings and birthed a child who grew up to an extra in the movie 300.
Speaking of LOTR, we seem to have gotten our J.R.R. Tolkien and our classics wires crossed because — and correct me if I’m wrong — I think this is supposed to be the Eye of Sauron:
I took Latin for six years like a big ol’ loser, and let me tell you, if D.K. handed this picture in as a homework assignment, it’d get him kicked out of class.
Quick aside: One time we were learning about planets, and I raised my hand and asked, “Who was Uranus named after?” I couldn’t stop laughing afterwards, so my teacher made me sit in the hallway for the rest of the period.
The blue Smurf Titan isn’t one of the characters at the bottom of TBTimes.org, so I’m not sure what detour this is supposed to be from our main narrative. I also can’t find Croc anywhere, which, if he truly is absent, would make this one of the few images he doesn’t appear in all season. I wonder if D.K. and S.M.G. (Social Media Guy) are just messing with me because I’ve made such a big deal about finding Croc in every image, but I think that’s giving these blogs way too much credit.
Speaking of D.K., some readers have reached out to me on Twitter or Instagram with links to the artist’s personal Instagram. I appreciate the hustle, but you guys can stop — I know who’s making the comics. I have reached out to ask him about it and he — much like S.M.G. last year — would prefer not to go on the record.
Honestly, I respect that. He wants his work to speak for itself, and while I have absolutely no idea what it’s supposed to be saying, I appreciate his commitment to his craft and the TB12 method of making people’s heads spin when they try to apply logic to it.
Anyway, I don’t know where all of this will lead. I’m hopeful that it will wrap up neatly, but I’m also slowly coming to terms with the fact that we just might never know. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe the real friends are the Hader facts and Greek mythology we brushed up on at the IHOPs along the way.