K-State fan Ben Asmann (left) poses for a photo with Kansas State radio analyst Stan Weber.



March Madness can bring out a lot of craziness. This one, especially. One Kansas State fan is taking to his computer, unleashing animated art across social media platforms, and capturing the craziness and angst felt this time of year by K-Staters, and college basketball fans in general, one outstanding gif at a time.

And he is eliciting the help of George, Jerry and Elaine.

Meet Ben Asmann. A 27-year-old Overland Park resident and employee for a kitchen and bathroom remodeling company, Asmann is a regular content producer on Reddit, where he goes by “everymanawildcat,” and in recent weeks has unveiled a series of Seinfeld gifs that have become widely popular in K-State and college basketball circles. His gem “Bubble Team” has over 1.2 million views and his other creations, “Elaine’s Bracket Pains” and “George and Jerry do Atlanta,” have garnered hundreds of thousands of views as well.

“It’s amazing,” Asmann says. “The gifs have just blown up.”

Asmann has crafted and created mini-masterpieces, each less than a minute in length, after spending hours diving into Seinfeld episodes mining for gold, finding the perfect visual sequence to accompany written dialog that conveys what he, along with thousands of others, are really thinking — or saying.

Such was the case when Asmann sat down to produce “Bubble Team” about six weeks ago. He felt his Wildcats, even after wins over then-No. 4 Oklahoma and No. 23 TCU, were being treated unfairly in being labeled as a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament.

An idea was born.

“I’ve always shamefully identified with George Costanza’s character and some of the cynicism, I feel that’s a decent representation of K-State fans,” Asmann says. “It started when they kept calling us a bubble team. I thought that up the week we beat Oklahoma and TCU and won four games in two weeks and we’re sitting there going, ‘Why aren’t we in the Top 25?’ Then they kept calling us a bubble team, and I’m like, ‘We’re sitting here tied for third in the best conference in basketball and we’re still on the bubble?’

“I tried to find a good scene of George feeling like he was being shortchanged and he’s asking all of these questions to Jerry and Elaine, and they’re like, ‘We don’t know… We don’t know why we’re still on the bubble.’”

The public response was immediate.

“When you post original contest, people usually like it if it’s quality,” Asmann says. “I was watching the views, watching it skyrocket. I was like, ‘Wow, a lot of people are already watching it.’ Within an hour, it was already at a couple thousand. Instantly, there were fans of every school I could think of talking about it, and actually a lot of positive feedback from KU fans, surprisingly.”

When NCAA Tournament brackets busted across the country this past weekend, Asmann was there, too. He felt your pain. “Elaine’s Bracket Pains” (“I had Sparty winning … and they lost to Syracuse … who didn’t even deserve a bid,” Elaine says) came out this Monday, and shows Elaine in physical pain, hunched over, gripping her stomach — a feeling everybody can relate to after watching their brackets go into the toilets this weekend.

Then there’s “George and Jerry Do Atlanta,” which Asmann released on Tuesday, in preparation for the Sweet 16.

“On Sunday, my bracket got busted because I had Michigan State winning over North Carolina and they both lost,” Asmann says. “A lot of people’s brackets got busted that night. I got such good feedback and everybody was like, ‘Keep making these.’ I went home Tuesday after work and cranked out “George and Jerry Do Atlanta.’”

So will Asmann keep producing these Seinfeld gifs? That’s the plan.

“Thing is, I don’t want to force any, and I don’t want to put them out just to put them out,” he says. “I’ll probably wait until the next round of games to figure out what I’m going to do next. I think people are afraid if we lose that I’ll stop making them but that’s not the case. I’m going to do some Royals ones and some Chiefs ones. I think I’m going to do some K-State football ones, but I might use It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

“People love Seinfeld and Sunny. They’re two of my favorite shows, so it works out perfect.”

So far in March, Asmann’s gifs are the clear winner.