:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/44371158/459460642.0.jpg)
If you wandered by the Spurs website or braved the depths of twitter today, you might have noticed a seemingly innocuous offer to win a free signed shirt. But what you may not have noticed is that this so-called "free shirt" actually comes with a heavy price.
Tweet a selfie at a @SpursOfficial match to @StubHubUK with #StubHubselfie. You could win a signed shirt! pic.twitter.com/7q7HCnZ1rA
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) December 19, 2014
StubHub, or as it was known in the Old Testament, BeelzebHub Prince of Darkness and Lord of the Flies, has controversially partnered with the club. This demon pretends to be offering fans a service: the ability buy and sell tickets to their fellow fans. Where's the harm in that? Sometimes season ticket holders can't go to all the games, and sometimes supporters can't get tickets through the club for a typically sold out match at White Hart Lane.
But "StubHub" holds a dark secret. When you enter BeelzebHub's domain, you are powerless to withstand your base urges. Fans cannot help but indulge their darkest fantasies and gouge each other mercilessly. You cannot control the impulse to raise prices as high as your fellow fools will pay. Face value? You have unchecked power to charge ten times that! HOW CAN ANYONE RESIST?
Since their partnership began, BeelzebHub has been slowly devouring the soul of the club.
And now it wants yours as well.
Like any demon lord, BeelzebHub gives nothing away for free. It always demands its pound of flesh. All it will cost you to win this shirt is your immortal soul.
Normally when a demon offers you an exchange for your soul, you know the bargain you're making. Need true love, a million dollars, or a golden fiddle? You know the devil's price. But that's what makes BeelzebHub so insidious.
To the innocent Spurs supporter, it may look like all BeelzebHub wants from you is something as innocuous as a "selfie." It's no coincidence that if you rearrange the letters in "selfie" you get "e-flies". In this modern age, selfies are the flies of the internet, an everpresent nuisance that preys on the decaying and rotten. And like their mortal counterparts, these "e-flies" are BeelzebHub's dominion as well.
The more learned among you must know that some cultures believed that a camera can steal a piece of your soul. What you might not know is that they were right. This innocent selfie is a contract with the devil.
The flies are circling, eager to pick apart our innocent, beloved game. Banners, ticket touts, hooligans, all fallen by the wayside with the glory of the game. Now the humble photograph will join the demon legion of Modern Football. Your soul for free merch.
Is it worth it?