South Carolina Gamecocks Reddit post goes viral, immediately banned

A hilarious post went viral today on the popular social media website Reddit.com. In the post, there was a screenshot of a community poll done by The State, a local newspaper outlet that covers the South Carolina Gamecocks.

For context, the University of South Carolina is renaming its live mascot, a real chicken, due to a naming dispute with the rooster’s previous owners. The State described the situation this way,

According to a report from The (Charleston) Post & Courier, the original owners trimmed the rooster’s comb — the red, fleshy area on its head — to make the bird look more like a fighting Gamecock. The Clarks have opted to keep the comb intact, citing the health benefits to the bird. An agreement with the original owners allowing the use of the Sir Big Spur name has expired. USC is guiding the process to select a new name.

Due to this new name change, The State posted the aforementioned poll, where the gentle hand of democracy delivered us all providence in the form of a new name for the bird formerly known as Sir Big Spur. That name was the now infamous, viral, and permanent moniker of Cock Commander. Yes, that’s right, Cock Commander.

The subsequent poll was then posted to an extremely popular subreddit, r/funny, where it went on to go viral and reach #1 on the front page of Reddit itself. This was no small feat, as the post had reached 1.5 million Reddit users, 11.4k in its last hour of visibility, been crossposted nine times, and was shared 51 times externally.

This is all a very long way of saying simply that the post itself was very popular amongst the r/funny crowd, it clearly gave a reaction to people. Also, it appears the poll was shared in hopes that the name would catch on, and grow so much in popularity on Reddit, that the university had no choice but to embrace the tidal wave of attention they were receiving in this renaming process.

South Carolina Gamecocks Reddit post goes viral, immediately banned

Alas, the higher powers known as moderators of the r/funny subreddit made their poorly focused choice to pull the post. This means it is no longer visible in any sphere of Reddit save for those who already posted comments or interacted with the post itself, depriving the world of seeing what name may lie in store for Sir Big Spur.

Hopefully, this post, along with national coverage across Twitter and other sports news outlets with taste, can spread awareness, spread visibility to this cause, to the #cockcommander cause.

The post may have been removed by overzealous, power-hungry Reddit mods, but the movement can still go on. So to that, we at DSN wish the best of luck to the South Carolina Gamecocks this season and wish Cock Commander a long and happy life in Williams-Brice Stadium.