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‘Great faceswap:’ Emily Longtin’s selfie with father goes viral after Caps’ gaffe

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Saturday, the Washington Capitals hosted Social Media Night at Verizon Center. There was a pregame “meet and tweet,” face-swapping stations, “tweet your seat” upgrades, and commemorative puck giveaways.

By night’s end the Caps went viral, but perhaps not in the way they had hoped.

During first intermission, Caps fan Emily Longtin shared a selfie with her father Larry with the caption “#CapsSocialNight.”

Four minutes later, the Capitals posted Emily’s photo. “Great faceswap,” the tweet read.

Emily’s photo was not a faceswap.

The junior at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews was gracious, all things considered. “That’s just my dad and me but thanks,” she wrote back.

The tweets were screenshotted by countless users who noticed the exchange, including the @NHLonNBCSports account.

Those tweets went viral. Uproxx, Complex, SB Nation, Sports Illustrated all wrote stories. At 11 PM, Twitter’s number one Twitter Moment was the Caps’ awkward exchange with its fan.

In an interview with RMNB on Sunday, Emily, who gained 773 followers from the affair, spoke about the experience and her Caps fanhood.

“I’ve been going to games since I was young and used to go to around five or ten games a year,” the Vienna, Virginia-native said. “Now, that I’m at college in Scotland, I watch games online whenever I don’t have class the next day. Most games are on from 12 AM to 3 AM.”

“I’ve been a fan for as long as I remember and my parents have been going to games since before I was born,” Emily continued. “When I’m home on winter break, I try to go to every home game.”

Emily recapped the night for us exclusively.

What I thought was a simple, cute daddy-daughter selfie evolved into an unexpectedly viral series of tweets. When we get to our seats at the Verizon Center for a hockey game, my dad and I usually take a photo together to document the experience. I posted the photo on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag associated with the game: #CapsSocialNight. The Capitals Twitter account saw my tweet and retweeted it. However, it was their comment on the photo that was intriguing: “Great faceswap.”

It seemed rather obvious to me that the photo was not a faceswap, so I just took the comment as a joke or a mistake and laughed it off. Suddenly, my phone would not stop buzzing. As you can see, both tweets now have a crazy number of retweets and likes. Due to this sudden mania, the Caps responded again.

I don’t believe that @Capitals wrote the faceswap tweet as a joke. Although I’m not insulted, many people thought that I should be. If it was actually a mistake, I could see why: I’m the spitting image of my dad.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t paying as much attention to the second period as I should have been because I was laughing at the reactionary tweets I was getting.

The tweets went even more viral when popular accounts such as Barstool Sports posted what happened.

I was suddenly notified that I was trending in Canada, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. Most of my tweets suddenly became Pens fans telling me to switch my loyalty or insulting the Caps.

Obviously I won’t have anyone insulting my favorite sports team. And many were also telling me to use my new-found fame for good, so I thought this was appropriate.

However, half the people responding were either commenting on my dad’s or my looks, both good and bad, insulting me because I’m a feminist, or trying (and failing) to correct my grammar. I have never gotten so many marriage proposals in my life, and none of the insults are really threatening.

I also refuse to let bad grammar corrections go by without commenting.

Did I go to the Caps game last night expecting to become social media famous randomly? No way. Will I continue to support the Caps? YES OF COURSE I WILL. Caps ride or die. We even named our black toy poodle Ovi after Alex Ovechkin. This family is rocking the red for life. If I were to take one thing from this experience, it would be the following: social media works in weird ways.

Emily and her dog Ovi.

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