We all know about this Mean Tweets trend— put celebrities on camera and have them read some of the awful things strangers say about them on the internet, for fun/profit/engagement metrics. Barcelona decided to produce a video of their own, minus the vitriol.
The club teamed up with Audi— spoiler alert, it’s primarily an advertisement for the car company— put living legend and literal alien from outer space Lionel Messi on the couch, along with teammates Gerard Piqué, Ivan Rakiti?, and Arda Turan. They scrolled Twitter on a smartphone and read praising Tweets about them aloud. Messi looked particularly bashful, insisting he doesn’t deserve that level of praise. (Um, dude, we’ve seen you play.) He also wanted to make it absolutely clear that he’s not actually an alien. (Which is EXACTLY what an alien would want us to think.)
This is all very cute and heartwarming, but if they want to capture the range of footballer emotion and expression, they should do this exact video with Cristiano Ronaldo. Or Mario Balotelli. Or Zlatan.