Images via Twitter

As you all probably know, telling people what to do on the internet will almost always backfire. NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin learned that recently when he told Twitter users to stop counting down to the Daytona 500, and his Twitter mentions are now quite, uh, numerical. That was a bad idea.


This all started with a sassy tweet from Hamlin, who competes full time in the NASCAR Sprint (?) Cup Series. The NASCAR season is incredibly long, with those involved in Sprint Cup Series traveling 36 weekends out of the year. The lengthy travel schedule is why Hamlin wasn’t thrilled with people beginning Daytona 500 countdowns right after the series’ season finale ended.

Here’s what he said:


Naturally, people kept on counting down—they just made sure to start tagging him in every countdown tweet. There’s even a Twitter bot dedicated to keeping Hamlin in the loop about how many days are left until the Daytona 500.

USA Today’s Jeff Gluck noticed the trolling countdowns on Saturday, and they’re pretty easy to spot if you know to look for them. Just check out Hamlin’s Twitter mentions.

Hamlin, this is why you don’t tell people what to do on the internet. It looks like you’ve got a full 92 more days of this. And tomorrow, it’ll be 91, and the next day, 90, and the next day... well, we’ll just check your Twitter mentions if we lose track.