Ah March Madness, the time of year where Americans go crazy by filling out supremely biased brackets about who is going to be the new NCAA basketball champion. However, if you aren’t a sports person, or just not a basketball person, there is now a way for you to get in on this bracket filling craze with March Mammal Madness.
Wait, did you say mammals?
That’s right! Six years ago some Arizona State University professors decided to create a mammalian version of a March Madness bracket where mammals of all different shapes and sizes would fight head to head until there was a single victor, Hunger Games style. For more information on how to play the game, you can visit their official Blog post. However, if you still aren’t convinced that this is the best thing ever, I’ve listed 5 reasons below as to why it is.
You Actually Learn Stuff
Sure, it might be stuff that you would only see on one Jeopardy game ever but it is pretty neat to realize that there are thousands of species out there that we never even knew existed. Honestly, some of them are too freaking cute to even be real.
You’ll Probably Have Better Odds…
Now if you’re like me and you don’t even recognize half of the team names in the tournament, then you’re likely going to do way better at March Mammal Madness. While you may have never heard of some of the animals, they are easily ‘Googleable,’ and some of them are just dead obvious over who is going to win. I mean, one of the competitors this year was literally named “Edible DorMouse” which aptly lost to the Crabeater Seal in the first round.
It Won't Interrupt Your Games
Even if you still like sports and March Madness, March Mammal Madness will get in the way of your game times. This is because all of the stories of who won the fights only last about 5 minutes on Twitter, it is super easy to catch up on the action of March Mammal Madness during the commercial breaks of March Madness. Or, you can always catch a recap of the fights on the Mammals Suck blog after each night of the tournament if you don’t want to read through all of the #FanBanter.
#StoatsAsMeasurement
Metric system, imperial system, I mean it is all just a mess and far too confusing. But, Stoats as a form of measurement is definitely something I can get behind. A stoat, if you don’t know, is also called a short-tailed weasel. During this tournament MMM participants usually use all three systems of measurement, but stoats is the most fun. Also, thanks to this handy-dandy chart, Stoats is an understandable measurement for all.
You’ll Fit Right In
If you're not convinced by now that this is the best use of Twitter ever then March Mammal Madness probably isn't for you. But, if any of these weird points intrigued you then you are definitely going to fit right in with this ragtag group of Mammal nerds.
