The Oakley Forum is Big Cat's new happy place

Somewhere between the doomscrolling and the political slap-fights, Big Cat stumbled onto a corner of the web that time forgot — the Oakley Forum. A message board for sunglasses obsessives that looks like it hasn't been redesigned since flip phones were cool, populated by dudes who just want to post pictures of their shades and talk to other dudes about shades. And he can't shake it.

The Yak

@BarstoolYak

The Oakley Forum is one of the last pure places on the internet and we love it

The whole bit on The Yak was less about Oakleys and more about what the rest of the internet has become. No quote-tweet dunks. No outrage cycle. Just a guy named BigOakleyEnjoyer posting his weekend fit. Big Cat's pitch is essentially that we should all be more like those guys — if you've got bad vibes, don't tweet through it, put the shades on and snap a pic for the group chat.

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

“Our internet should take a page out of this internet. Like this is how it’s done, just have fun with the boys… Don’t go to the Internet to bitch constantly, that’s negative energy. If you got negative energy put on a pair of Oakleys, snap a pic, send it to the boys” -@BarstoolBigCat

By Friday night the bit had already metastasized. TJ Hitchings, never one to leave a runner on base, slapped on the Oakleys and made it official — Friday night, shades on, anything can happen. That is the Oakley Forum ethos translated to a Stool guy's timeline in real time.

TJ

@TJHitchings

Friday night. Oakleys are on. Anything can happen. t.co/FvKT0eCulG

And then, hours after the cameras stopped rolling, Big Cat was apparently still thinking about it. A late-night tweet from him basically read like a man trying to convince himself to delete the apps and go join a sunglasses forum full-time. Heaven, he called it. A website that hasn't been updated in 15 years, full of bros who have life figured out better than the rest of us.

Big Cat

@BarstoolBigCat

Can’t stop thinking about the bros on the Oakley Forums. Those guys have life figured out better than any of us. Just put on their oakleys and chat with the boys on a website that hasn’t been updated in 15 years. Heaven

The funny part is the gravitational pull is real. Converts are already showing up — randoms posting their first Oakley fit pics and crediting The Yak for the recruitment pipeline. Whether this becomes a real bit or burns out by Monday is anybody's guess, but for one Friday night the Stool corner of the internet collectively decided that the move is shades on, phone down, talk to the boys. Hard to argue with that.