Quotes From The Pod: Ask The Original BLK Blogger (feat. Mo) - EP 5 - 2Biggs

Brandon Newman5/19/2020 4:36 PM

While editing the 2Biggs Podcast, I collected some out-of-context quotes from our most recent episode with one of the ten original members of Barstool Sports; a black guy from Philly named Mo.

I'm in constant communication with one of our interns, Josh, who has been a Stoolie from the jump. He told Willie and me that we should bring back "Ask A Black Blogger" via the 2Biggs Podcast. A great idea that we were excited to explore, but it was important that we handled it the right way. We knew how much this series meant to the Barstool community. The day Willie and I pitched 2Biggs to Dave, El Pres mentioned Mo's series to showcase the days when Barstool highlighted opinions from the perspective of a black man in America. Here's a taste of Mo's brilliance in a 2013 edition of "Ask A Black Blogger."

During our interview, Mo gave us specific instructions not to embarrass the black race in our attempt at bringing back his legendary series. We'll see what we can do, but I'm not making any promises. Now, enjoy some highlights from our fifth episode of 2Biggs with Mo, Ask The Original BLK Blogger.

“I’m in Brooklyn right now. If people have been following Barstool for a long time they know that I was lying about living in Philadelphia for about 2 and a half years before coming out of the Brooklyn closet and admitting that I live here. Still a Philly fan though.” - Mo
“If you’re speaking about culture, we realized, there weren’t a lot of ‘us’ around. There weren’t a lot of black people around. And if we were to go in the history books, your face is the only face that pops up.” - Willie
“I'm the Jackie Robinson of Barstool Sports… Rosa Parks. All that.” - Mo
“Randomly one time when I was just on a trip to DC. I get a call from Dave Portnoy who I’ve heard about but didn’t really know. Barstool which I had heard and seen but didn’t really know. They offered me a job for more money and working from home. Writing about Philly Sports.” - Mo was selling resumes when El Presidente offered him a job blogging from Barstool
"It was interesting earlier on… trying to find out what works and what doesn’t like, alright, you have a story that a guy hit his wife with a car and she was on the hood on the highway for 3 miles, like, obviously she shouldn’t have been in his way. That’s how you write the blog.” - Mo
“There were a lot of hard times early on man. And maybe it’s changed now, I don’t read as much as I used to but the comment section was a big part of what Barstool was. Like people would come, read a headline, and read some of the funny blogs, but a lot of folks go immediately to the comment section just to see the wild stuff that they’re saying.” - Mo
“The initial wave for me was like, alright, you either have to grow really thick skin or get another job. And I wanted to stick it out.” - Mo
“Unlike any other writing job, and I think this is still true about Barstool compared to a lot of other places, there’s a lot of freedom.” - Mo
“I can only see so many comments and like roll my eyes at them and wish I could explain the things I already explained in the blog to the people commenting and it’s like, this may not be good for my mental health to be doing this every day. Leaving Barstool you look back and you’re like, ‘Damn I miss being able to write about anything I want to write about. Seeing them move to New York. Seeing the sale. Like, ‘Damn I missed [out on] millions of dollars. That sucks.' … but from a professional standpoint, I think I'm doing okay.” - Mo
“There’s a little bit of having to discover who you are, and for me personally, I think Barstool helped that in a lot of regards. I got to learn about what people in America actually think and you know, in 2016, I guess I wasn’t as shocked as a lot of people were.” - Mo
“I remember thinking, this guy plays a character. There are times you talk to Dave and then there are times you talk to El Presidente… I think as time went on those two personalities, more so started melding.” - Mo
"I was on stage one time in a Smurfette costume dancing at the Blackout Tour. That happened. I can't say that didn't happen." - Mo
"I've had people who work for me, I 've had writers under me, who openly go at Barstool and went at Barstool every day. It's an interesting dynamic to be like, yeah I'm your boss. Yeah, I did work at Barstool. Yeah, I did do some of those sexist things. But like, do you consider me a sexist?" - Mo
"I haven't had nobody flat out call me the N-word at Barstool. That's not my reality. But I'm also 6'3 with dreads and you can put on a highlight tape of me mashing someone into the ground. I understand that's my resume." - Willie
"It comes from my football days. If this is the jersey you're going to put on my back and the helmet I'm going to wear on my head then I'm going out like Braveheart. You can say whatever about me but if you talk about my family, I'm going to the carpet with you." - Willie
"I'm just Maurice. I can't speak for all black people. I refuse to be speaking for all black people. So I would tell you, make sure you make that damn clear that you're not speaking for the entirety of the race but I think black folks in America do have shared experiences that they can, and in a lot of ways, have to share with audiences like the Barstool audience." - Mo