Little Mikey Phelps and his "Marijuana Pipe"

I realized, as the week went by, and the Worldwide Leader (among others) bombarded us with yet more coverage on the story, that we forgot to address one of the New Year’s most intriguing events in the catch-up post – our boy Michael Phelps’ little mary jane mishap.

(If you missed out on this contentious little bit of news, just Google “Phelps and Bong”. Kinda fun.)

There seem to be two prevailing sets of opinions on the story and subsequent media hissy-fit, and since we’re all about fairness and balance here at 65TPT, let’s give them both some thought.

Opinion set #1: Phelps deserves every bit of criticism and censure he gets from both his sponsorship and the ruling body of his sport – not to mention the disappointment of fans everywhere. The fact that the photo was news in the first place is the natural and necessary side-effect of worldwide fame and millions in sponsorship dollars.

Once a person of Phelps’ stature decides to trade on his personal image by accepting unGodly amounts of compensation in advertising contracts, it is the public’s right (some would call it duty) to scrutinize said image using the facts at hand. The photo was published responsibly and legally because Phelps is a public figure and has no reasonable expectation of privacy at a college party in South Carolina*.

*I don’t think either side of the argument would dispute this point. Any editor in his or her right mind would publish the photo without much hesitation. Personally, we don’t blame agents of the media for acting on this definition of “news” – we blame YOU, the consumer, for caring. (We would also appreciate it if YOU, the consumer, ignored the fact that WE, the publisher, are only fueling this fire by contradicting ourselves and continuing the discussion. But hey, YOU started it.)


The idea that Phelps - an iconic role model for young people throughout the world - would use an illegal substance is shocking, and his personal decisions regarding recreational drug use represent an important issue for public discourse.

Opinion set #2: Regardless of his status as a record-setting athlete and marketing mammoth, Phelps deserves the same amount of privacy and respect as the rest of us Triple-A’s (Anonymous Average Americans). Why should he be penalized for his monumental success in both competition and business? Ignore the fact that he’s the face of the American Olympic team, and the photo would just be one more of the millions depicting toasted-ass, bong-ripping college students on Facebook and MySpace. Therefore, it deserves just as much press as those photos.

[This set of opinions is almost always attached to a rant about someone’s personal stance on American drug policy (marijuana especially) – a subject we’re neither qualified nor interested enough to broach here. The way we look at it, the law’s the law, and there’s little to accomplish debating it in this forum. Got a problem? Write your senator.]


Our biggest issue with the voluminous coverage and subsequent public-opinion overload related to these types of stories is not the reactions themselves, but that the size and scope of the reactions seem to be directly proportional to the achievements and stature of the offender in question. To us, it suggests that the transgression is far less relevant than the individual who committed it – contradicting the reasoning behind its importance in the first place.

It’s like this: If any other swimmer (besides maybe Dana Torres or Mark Spitz) got caught in a similar fashion, we wouldn’t give a damn. We wouldn’t even know the person by sight, name, or biography, and if someone showed us the photo or took the time to Email it to us, we would very likely disregard it immediately. We’re not interested in healthy discourse about the effects of marijuana on society, or even sports – we simply use those premises as thin veils to disguise our hero-worship and obsession with celebrity.

There’s nothing we love more in this country than a good ol’ fashioned fall from grace. We actually enjoy watching the slow, torturous deaths of the Golden Boys (and Girls), because deep down, we know they never existed in the first place. We’re transfixed by the gory beauty of the melting façade.

Jordan, Jones, A-Rod, Rose, Lawrence Taylor and even Derrick Thomas – the list of battered reputations and shattered public personas grows on us each and every day. And why do we love these stories of loss, transgression, and mistake? Because they make our heroes say, “Sorry.” Make them apologize to us.

It’s better than a rookie-card autograph with a personal note. We love these little circuses, ‘cause they flip the script on the traditional player-fan relationship -- empowering us, the ever-forgiving fans, to do our inevitable duty in the infinite cycle of news-media scandal.

And don’t we do it well? Draw up that mental list of disgraced superstars and ask yourself: How many of them have we forgiven? The answer, of course, is every single one who asked for it. Gamblers and cheaters, ‘Roiders and dope-smokers -- drive-home drinkers, wife-beaters, liars, and just plain weasely characters – we’ve forgiven them all at some point or another. But why?

Simple: Innocence is power. We, the innocent consumers, fans, admirers and bystanders basically just love judging people – especially those who have it so much better than we do. We feel empowered by the fact that they ask our forgiveness. And all one must do is ask. Perhaps it’s our overwhelmingly Christian heritage, but Americans tend to grant that forgiveness unquestioningly and, usually, without much hesitation.

All we really want to hear is our hero say the words. We’re a lot like the four-year-old’s mother, prodding: “What do you say, Mikey?”

Of course, Little Mikey (as most of us would still like to think of him) has alweady said his sowwees, and USA Swimming sentenced him to a three-month time out. Only one of his sponsors, Kellogg’s, has vowed not to renew his contract -- no doubt hoping to protect a generation of Froot Loop-slurping brats from that dreaded gateway into the world of illicit drugs, anonymous sex, senseless crime and militant Islam. (And whatever else we’re scared of at the moment.)

You may get an idea about which set of opinions your humble publishers hold, but that certainly doesn’t discount the other side. Personally, we just don’t like the current trends concerning individual privacy and the media in general – including the media outlets we ourselves choose, like Facebook, MySpace, and myriad others. What does our increasing willingness to publish personal information (and other media i.e. photos, audio and video) mean for the civil rights of the future? Will the law ever step in to stem these ever-deepening tides?

Or, will our generation have to take its lumps – Mikey sure took his last month – and learn our lessons the hard way?