A headline w/ a photo of Creed "Officially one of the dumbest music petitions you will ever see"

Creed vs Creed

A little fun got out of hand.

Once the Rocky spinoff/sequel was titled “Creed”, every yukster started making jokes saying “I thought this was about the band”, or “Michael B. Jordan was a bad casting choice for Scott Stapp”.

The jokes got old fast. 

Somebody had to do something about it. So I went over to change.org and wrote up a petition to get the name of the movie changed.

A screenshot of my change.org petition "Change the name of the movie Creed"

I posted it to my twitter, and it didn’t really do much. 

To this day, I don’t really know how it took off like it did. I reposted it a few times and a few people found it funny… but not that many. But eventually Fast Company gave it a blurb in a news story roundup. Once one publication runs with something a lot of others jump on it as well. With news media shifting from highly vetted information to a volume business, the process leaves out time to think critically or check facts. Nothing against the writers, it’s the changing media ecosystem that has forced their hands. Plenty covered their bases with a “well this might be a joke, but either way, here you go” attitude towards it.

Fact Magazine picked up the story, then The Philadelphia Inquirer, and then Spin Magazine. Once Spin ran it, it spread to a lot of places.

Complex
Deadline
Vice deleted their English version, but the Spanish version is still up.
Pajiba
Diffuser
MusicFeeds
VanyaLand
Metro
A Journal of Music Things
Risky Fuel
LoudWire
FlickNation
The Guardian… It even made it to the print edition…

 

News clipping from the print edition of the Guardian "Creed All About it - Tongue ever so slightly in cheek, a change.org petition has called for the makers of Rocky spin-off Creed to rename the film out of respect to the Christian metal band of the same name. Sign here" w/ a link to the petition.

It even made it to a CNN video. I’m very proud of getting the word “Creedmunity” broadcast.

A lot of outlets later reworked their articles to say they knew it was a joke the entire time. Some outlets are no longer around.

Scott Stapp blocked me on twitter, however soon unblocked me. I guess he saw the humor in it.

Mashable, of all outlets, did their best due diligence, contacting me and asking me questions about it, and I answered in the spirit of the petition itself, leaving the interviewer to reply “I admire your commitment to the bit”, then running with “Petition by ‘Creed fan’ to change title of ‘Rocky’ sequel is the funniest thing you’ll read all day” – clearly calling out that it was a gag. Bravo.

Mic Wright interviewed me and did a really good writeup about it: Meet the #Creedmunity: How one guy’s joke about the new Rocky movie fooled lazy journalists.

It was a fun for a few days and then it died out…

For then.

Fantastic Fest and a Fight

Things went back to normal for a while then I got an email from Fantastic Fest inviting me to participate in their Fantastic Debates – an event that combines Lincoln/Douglas style debates with boxing. I immediately said yes. They attempted to get Michael B. Jordan to be my opponent, but for whatever reason he declined. Instead, they got a Nerdist employee as Legendary (Creed’s production company) owned Nerdist. I took it seriously and trained with a real boxer.

How did it turn out? Judge for yourself.