Chris Kluwe is a renaissance man for the 21st century. He's a Redditor, a world-class athlete with eight years' NFL experience and a vocal human rights advocate. He punts, he writes, he tweets and he games. He was named by Salon as 2012's "Sexiest Man of the Year," probably making him the first World of Warcraft geek to ever be tabbed as such. On Twitter (where his handle is @ChrisWarcraft) he has more than 175,000 followers, who he keeps entertained with biting social commentary, jokes and football insight.
You could make a compelling case that Kluwe is the sports realm's answer to the most interesting man in the world. In June, he released a book of essays called Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies: On Myths, Morons, Free Speech, Football, and Assorted Absurdities. Earlier this month, he penned excellent web columns for both Deadspin and The Daily Dot.
See also: 6 Questions With 'Sport Science' Creator John Brenkus
Given that long list of accomplishments, we figured it was high time to have Kluwe on Mashable for a quick Q&A. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our phone conversation, which covered his Reddit habits, Sharknado as inspiration and how to combat Twitter trolls, among other topics.
Let's start with your sci-fi novel. You've mentioned it here and there but I don't think most people know much about it. How'd that get started?
It's actually a science fiction trilogy. I'm working on it with a friend, Andrew Reiner, the executive editor of Game Informer. We're both big science fiction fans and fans of video games and nerd culture. It started when he had just seen that Sharknado was coming out. We were like, "How hard can it be to write one of those? It's got to just be two or three nights of getting drunk for a couple hours and then writing something."
So we started spitballing ideas back and forth, then after 20 minutes or so realized we had a really good idea so let's not waste it on a stupid shark movie.
What's it about?
It's set about 400 or 500 years in the future but deals with a lot of current-day stuff: The dangers of a surveillance state, what happens when one entity controls the flow of information, what happens when people try to do things but may not think about the consequences. It's all of that wrapped up in science fiction clothing.
We've actually already finished the first book, are considering some titles and talking with publishers. We're working on the second book right now. We already know the plot line for the third one, so it's just a matter of writing the rest out.
Speaking of nerd culture, few athletes are ever on Reddit other than the occasional promo AMA. You are though. How'd you get into it?
I've always been pretty active online. I used to lurk on the Something Awful forums and occasionally went on Fark.com and stuff like that, so Internet message boards aren't really new territory for me. I had a couple buddies who were on Reddit, so I started checking out r/nfl and a couple other gaming subreddits and thought it was a good community with lots of useful information. I'm on r/nfl quite a bit actually. But usually I'll just lurk unless a punting-oriented question comes up, then I'll chime in.
You've also written a fair amount for a number of online outlets, really funny pieces. As a public figure, when people recognize you on the street, do they usually bring up football or Internet stuff first?
It's funny. A lot of people will actually come up to me and be like, "Hey, are you that punter that wrote that letter?" I'm like, "Yeah, that's me." [Last season, Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo spoke in favor of a Maryland ballot initiative to legalize gay marriage. A Maryland state delegate wrote the Ravens' owner a letter urging him to muzzle Ayanbadejo. Kluwe responded with a hilarious, scathing open letter of his own.]
But I'd say about half the people who do come up to me mention sports first, and then the other half mention video games or socializing online.
Cool. So pro athlete, activist, Internet writer, now novelist. Are you planning to leave any jobs for the rest of us?
(Laughs.) Well, I haven't become a rock star yet and I'm still in training to become an astronaut, so those are still open.
You've taken a more public and articulate stance on same-sex marriage than most pro athletes. When you started being more vocal, what was reaction like from your teammates?
In the locker room it was great. Of the guys who came up to me and said something, probably 40-45% said they may not agree with me on the same-sex rights stuff but they appreciated me speaking up for Brendon because that was a First Amendment thing.
Guys understood we're there to play football but knew we could have conversations if they wanted to, and that I was always going to be respectful. The other 60% agreed with all of it, they thought it was the right thing to do and people should be allowed to live their own lives.
Interesting. So it sounds like maybe NFL locker rooms are more tolerant than the average fan would assume.
I think the culture has changed drastically over the past five, 10, 15 years. The thing people generally don't realize is NFL players are young men growing up in society. As society changes so do the views of the young people within it. You've got 21, 22, 23-year-olds coming into the league every year. I've seen it myself.
The veterans used to be guys who were raised in the 80s and 90s and that showed in their attitudes. Now there are more players who grew up in the 2000s and it's a more tolerant atmosphere. Fans can be with a team for 40, 50, 60 years, but players are lucky if they're around for seven or eight years. So the locker room culture can shift much more rapidly.
After the Raiders cut you this pre-season in favor of Marquette King, you posted some cool thoughts on Twitter basically co-signing the decision. Any sense of whether or not you'll be on an NFL roster this season? Are you hoping to be?
I think I had a pretty good pre-season, I finished with close to a 47-yard average, so it's not like I went out and tanked the pre-season. It's just Marquette averaged around 53 yards and they wanted to go with the younger leg. That's just the nature of the business. So I'm just waiting to see. Hopefully there will be a team that's interested and needs a proven, reliable, veteran punter. When that happens I'll be ready to go.
So that was kind of the good side of sports Twitter. But we see stories again and again of trolling fans tweeting really ugly stuff at athletes. Being there in the pros, do guys actually pay attention to these messages, or is it more something that fans and media make a big deal out of?
It depends on the guy and how familiar he is with the culture of the Internet. There a lot of guys who look at it like, "How could anyone say something like that?" Then you have guys like me who were raised with the Internet and know a person would never say that if we met face-to-face. Anyone can be a keyboard warrior and they'll only offend you as much as you let them, so it's best to just ignore. I try not to bring it out too often, but I've been around enough message boards and forums to make someone look pretty foolish if I have to.
So what's your top tip for fighting back then?
You can find out a lot about people based on their followers and who they follow. The really funny ones are when someone has like 30,000 followers but it's obvious about 90% of them are fake. It's mainly just turning the tables on someone. You just need some verbal jiu jitsu.
You've answered this before but, given some of the subject matter of this interview, I'd be remiss not to get it straight from the source: Would you rather fight one duck-sized horse or 100 horse-sized ducks?
(Laughs). I would rather fight 100 duck-sized Sebastian Janikowskis. That's actually the other question that gets asked now: Would you rather be kicked by one horse-sized Janikowski or 100 duck-sized Janikowksis?
So you think you could take 100 duck-sized Janikowsis then.
Yeah, i think I could take them. Because you have to consider they only come at you like four or five a time. So, yeah, I like my odds.
Image: D Dipasupil/Getty Images for PFLAG