The Attention Generation

A bizarre live stream incident involving a Chicagoland football player turns into a modern-day lesson in digital brand building

Some moments happen online when we know the internet will get weird.

One of those moments happened last week involving a thrown cap by a 16-year-old football player from Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein. A thrown cap used to be a thing baseball managers like Lou Piniella did before getting tossed by an exasperated umpire. This one, involving a University of Illinois cap, sparked the kind of keyboard rage that makes internet culture both fascinating and disturbing. In the ongoing fallout from the incident, there was quite a bit of pearl-clutching and labeling the barely-able-to-drive Taylor as the latest representation of how the Alpha Generation is ruining society. I’ve got a slightly different take. Rather than condemn Taylor for a selfish act, maybe we should applaud him for his marketing savvy in an era that rewards attention over achievement.

So hate the game all you want. But don’t hate the player.

Some background: Trae Taylor is a sophomore at Carmel Catholic High School, located in suburban Mundelein. Even before Taylor enrolled at Carmel in 2023, he was a highly ranked college prospect by those who do such rankings. I remember there being a buzz about Taylor as a freshman (I saw him play a JV game that fall and struggled to find a parking spot when locating parking should never be a problem for non-varsity high school events). Taylor became the starter in 2024 and put up some good stats for a Corsairs team that won three games.

With nine games of high school football under his belt, Taylor decided he was ready to tell the world about a major life decision—college. He chose “Decision Day,” May 1, a day when thousands of students across the country finalize their college destination. We are long past the days of putting a 25-cent stamp on an envelope and snail-mailing our pencil-marked “yes” on a college acceptance letter. Email is today’s communications currency, with social media platforms like Instagram serving as a companion promotion tool. Like yours, I’m sure, my IG feed was filled through the weekend with individual posts on where Tommy, Lauren, Jacob, Maddie, and all the other kids from my area high school were headed to college. I think the recognition is awesome and a healthy use of social media, a welcome break from TwitterX Trump-raging, where the broken-brained blame the president for everything from flight delays to the brats being overcooked (although Elon-curated feeds prevent most of this now, but plenty of lunacy still seeps through).

Because Taylor is a four-star recruit with dozens of offers from name-brand colleges (37, according to his TikTok profile) a vanilla IG post revealing his choice simply would not do. With status comes responsibility, and Taylor’s significant online reputation called for more of a decision day “event.” Inside a gymnasium on Carmel’s campus, flanked by his parents, a few coaches and select teammates, Taylor staged a mini-press conference.

(There’s nothing unusual about that on the surface; highly touted athletes have done the “reveal” presser for decades. I’ve covered many in my career. They are rarer now in the digital age as athletes use TwitterX or IG as a means of content distribution, where anyone from the next-door neighbor to Aunt Clara in Boise can follow along on an athlete’s recruiting journey. By posting videos from workouts, camps, and the obligatory image flex with famous coaches, the actual college decision becomes somewhat anticlimactic for loyal followers. Super fans can pay $10 a month for regular updates from Recruiting Industrial Complex media companies like Rivals, 24/7 Sports, or On3. So we know there’s a high-demand market for this type of content. Simple economics tells us supply must meet that demand.)

Everything seemed normal at the start of the stunt event. Taylor spoke into the microphone and said he’s ready to make a decision he’d been waiting for “since 7th grade when I got my first offer.” He then put down the microphone, shuffled a few hats resting in front of him, stood up, picked up one of the hats belonging to the University of Illinois, and put it on his head. Taylor then said, “I’m going to stay home and go to Illinois.” For a brief moment, the collective gasp of Illini Nation could be heard from sea to shining sea. He chose us! But after a dramatic pause, he threw the hat, picked up a different one, and unzipped his hoodie to reveal a Nebraska jersey.

Fooled y’all!

Watching the video, it’s hard to tell who amongst the live audience was in on the ruse. It doesn’t really matter, as they were a curated audience, chosen by Taylor as stage props, #TeamTaylor all the way. Although it was all good vibes inside the Carmel gym, online, the predictable backlash began almost immediately.

A tweet from @BarstoolSports that called Taylor’s stunt “an alltime disrespectful pump fake” has 2.5 million views as of this writing. The event was—of course—live streamed by one of the aforementioned media companies, 24/7 Sports. A host conferenced in Taylor seconds after the cap toss and didn’t even bring it up. She chuckled along before asking Taylor why he chose Nebraska over dozens of suitors, playing her part perfectly, just like the live audience.

What we were watching was not organic but orchestrated; those on camera nothing more than bit actors in support of The Trae Show, starring the 16-year-old alpha in the room. When asked by the host why he picked Nebraska, Taylor gave perfunctory, scripted answers about the school developing him “on and off the field” and “preparing him for the NFL.” It was “all good!” as Taylor shouted on the live stream.

Because Taylor lives his life on camera and his TwitterX replies are open, not everyone agreed with the “all good” part.

He was called “a clown” on the platform, his actions “insanely stupid behavior” according to one tweeter. Those remarks were balanced with Taylor defenders calling out the admonishers, referring to them as “haters” and “for those upset, get a life.”

The whole incident could have ended somewhere deep in Taylor’s mentions but then came another twist in the story. Later that day, Taylor posted an apology (of sorts).

In a tweet posted a few hours after the hat-tossing incident, Taylor, standing in front of a brick building, first thanked everyone “for all the support” then proceeded to apologize to Illini Nation as “throwing a hat the way I did at my commitment is not the way I want to be perceived.”

Excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical of your mea culpa, Trae. There’s an argument to be made the whole saga unfolded just as you intended.

Between his TwitterX, Instagram and TikTok, Taylor has accumulated around 30,000 followers. He has his own website, qb-t3.com, where visitors can read up on his “upcoming events” and, for serious fans, can spend $66 on a custom tie dye hoodie, $40 on a “vintage” poster, $34 on a flex-fit hat. Check it out. There’s actually some sharp-looking merch on there! I may go for the $28 visor as a shanked golf shot throwing object and tribute to good ol’ Coach Piniella.

We are in the midst of a mass sea change in college athletics. Amateurism is for house league t-ball kids. In Illinois, two pieces of legislation are on the docket that move prep sports closer in the direction of professionalism. When was the last time an analyst referred to a college—or high school—player as a “student athlete?” That sounds as outdated as the help-wanted ads in a Saturday newspaper.

No doubt the events of this past week have made Taylor more famous. He has certainly gained more followers and, dare we say, “influence.” The bizarre Stanley Kubrick-like press conference and apology will forever live on the internet, and Taylor did receive some backlash.

But other than a few angry tweets or comments on YouTube, I don’t envision long-term reputational consequences or damage. Rather, it likely enhanced the QBT3 brand, sold some extra merch and elevated his standing in the trigger man hustle game that guys at Taylor’s level must play. Analyzing it all, I can’t help but throw out two rhetorical questions:

Did Nebraska recruit a quarterback or a social media influencer?

What’s more valuable to the university, Taylor’s right arm or 30k social media followers?

(feel free to answer in the comments below)

Who knows if Taylor will ever play a snap for the Huskers. The 2027 football season, when Taylor would first be eligible, is a mighty long time away. That’s two years Taylor can tweet, IG, snap, Tok, sell hoodies, snapbacks, make personal appearances, and in his spare time, work on being a better quarterback.

Maybe the judgmental adults have it all wrong.

Rather than accuse Taylor of being everything that’s wrong with kids today, we should admire him. Sporting goods companies should consider hiring him as an ambassador. The administrators at private Carmel Catholic should thank him for the free promotion he gave the school (can’t buy that kind of viral marketing!) and ask him to speak at a business class (for a small fee).

It’s a new day, and the kids are getting paid. So go get yours, Trae.

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