We probably shouldn’t have expected anything less from the first papal conclave of the hyper-social media/internet era.
In Europe, thousands of people had been playing a conclave fantasy game to predict the next pope. Of course, there were also betting odds on the next pope because if you can’t bet on the next pope, what can you bet on, really?
This all came to a head on Thursday when the papal conclave finally sent up white smoke from the Sistine Chapel, signalling that a new pope had been selected. Predictably, everyone stateside started making Arizona Cardinals “the pick is in” NFL Draft jokes once they saw the smoke.
Because, of course, they did.
Heck, even the NFL finally jumped into the fray, posting its own Cardinals “the pick is in” photo from the league’s X account:
I cannot stress this enough: what a genuinely bizarre time to be alive.