Stephen A. Smith Has Been Exposed. But It Doesn't Matter

It is impossible to mass-produce authenticity.

McDonalds sells fast food, not real food. Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson sell placebos, not vaccines. MSNBC feeds its audience buffoonery, not news. ESPN is no different. They sell fantasies, not sports.

That has become evident with the public undressing of ESPN's golden calf, Stephen A. Smith, by former corporate media stalwart Jason Whitlock. Stephen A. is not an authentic sportscaster. He does not discuss sports at a level worthy of a $12 million price tag, the highest annual salary for any on-air ESPN employee.

But it doesn't matter. Corporate television has no authenticity because there is no market for authenticity. Fans love being lied to.

Last week, Stephen A. Smith released Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes. It's another entry in the self-aggrandizing celebrity biography genre. In a series of YouTube shows, Jason Whitlock, current BlazeTV host and former colleague of Smith at ESPN, detailed all the inaccuracies he discovered after reading Straight Shooter. Most notably, the liberties taken regarding Smith's account of his high school and collegiate basketball career. Stephen A. retaliated, calling Whitlock a "fat bastard" and a "piece of shit." Geez, I got roasted better than that in high school.

This fiasco reminds me of the Drake / Pusha T rap beef.

Drake, a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, was riding high after the success of his 2016 multi-platinum album Views. His fifth album, Scorpion, was set to release in June 2018. Roughly a month before the release of Scorpion, veteran rapper Pusha T, who had some minor verbal scuffles with Drake over the years, released his album Daytona. In the last song on the album, "Infrared," Pusha sent a few more verbal darts Drake's way. Drake responded with a couple of lazy diss tracks, "Duppy Freestyle" and "I'm Upset." Pusha T responded, dropping a salvo titled "The Story of Adidon," which HotNewHipHop.com ranks as the fifth-best diss track of all time.

Please stop referring to this picture as “artwork”...I’m not an internet baby, I don’t edit images...this is a REAL picture...these are his truths, see for yourself https://t.co/gd6vRS3HM8 pic.twitter.com/2el58HEZ8F

— King Push (@PUSHA_T) May 30, 2018

TSOA exposed Drake's fraudulent persona while opening some deep personal wounds. The artwork accompanying TSOA was an old photo of Drake in blackface wearing a shirt with a Jim Crow cartoon. Pusha T rapped over the instrumental of Jay-Z's song "The Story of OJ", which explored the identity crisis in black America. The Virginia Beach rapper poked at Drake's racial identity crisis:

"Confused, always felt you weren't black enough.

Afraid to grow it 'cause your 'fro wouldn't nap enough."

Pusha T criticized Drake's father for being a "deadbeat" dad after abandoning him and his mother when he was a child. He japed about Drake fathering a child with a French porn actress and how Drake is following in his father's "deadbeat" footsteps by hiding the (at the time) four-month-old, allegedly named Adonis. Drake planned to unveil the child in a photo shoot for a clothing line launch with Adidas that summer. Pusha revisited the ghostwriting claims that have surrounded Drake during a good portion of his career.

"The Story of Adidon" was a career-altering moment for Drake. The song delivered irreparable damage to Drake's street cred, making his tough-guy raps and Hollywood bachelor persona ring hollow. A few years later, Drake ditched his signature fade for cornrows in an apparent attempt to repair his image with his black audience.

However, TSOA did not end Drake's career. He is still a household name, an idol to all his stiff-necked followers. He is still the gold standard in Hip-Hop, even if the bloom is off the rose a bit. It doesn't matter he openly mocked black Americans with the blackface photo. His ardent fans, who adore him because of his perceived authenticity, ignore the reality that Drake received whole songs' worth of help from ghostwriters. In the long run, Drake will continue to have success as a reality TV version of a rapper because audiences do not desire authenticity.

Stephen A. Smith will have a very similar fate. Yes, he has apparently fabricated, if not flat-out lied, about his athletic career. His NFL analysis is laughable. His NBA analysis isn't much better. He plaints about issues, like gun control, that he has very little knowledge about. Smith recites the same tired-ass talking points George Stephanopoulos rattles off on ESPN's sister station, ABC. But Stephen A. will continue to have a prosperous career because his supporters prefer the McDonalds version of a sportscaster.

Many fans prefer beautiful liars over ugly truthtellers. As long as the person on the screen shares the same skin color, has a nice smile, wears appealing clothing, supports the same political party, or feeds their confirmation bias, most fans will buy their lies wholesale.

It's how Andrew Tate can disillusion many conservatives despite his charade as a hyper-masculine man's man. It's how the Obamas and Martin Luther King Jr. fooled black America. It's how TD Jakes and Joel Osteen led the Christian church astray.

Just like rappers will do a mic check before a performance, audiences should always do an authenticity check on the influencers they support. Are these people who they say they are? Are they even using their real names?

We know most entertainers use pseudonyms to appeal to the audience they are catering to. Drake was born Aubrey Drake Graham. (Yeah, try getting street cred using the name Aubrey.) Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman. Jon Stewart was born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz. Politicians, who we expect to be honest, lie about their names. Is Barack Obama actually Barry Soetoro? We know Nikki Haley was born Nimrata Randhawa Haley. Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III. (“Blithe” means carefree or showing lack of concern.)

Even race-hustling pseudo-intellectuals like Ibram X. Kendi (born Ibram Henry Rogers) changed his name so he could sell books and give lectures to liberals full of "white guilt."

Fans embrace inauthenticity because it justifies and deflects from the lies many of them tell. When confronted, they explain it away with whataboutisms. When people lie about their ethnicity on a scholarship or job application, they respond, "Well, what about George Santos?" When people cheat on their taxes, "What about Wesley Snipes?"

Jason Whitlock delivered what should have been a fatal blow to Stephen A. Smith's career. In a society that cherishes authenticity, Stephen A. would suffer the same backlash Tavis Smiley did when he stated that blacks fell further behind during the Obama Administration. Corporate media would shun him.

But as long as sports audiences crave counterfeit influencers and sportscasters, there will be many more Stephen A. Smiths to come.