Chicago Bears co-opt #GoBears. Cal fans take it well.

It’s football season! Let us all revel with our fellow fans, which is facilitated using social networks like the Twitter!

And as California Golden Bears, we love to “Go Bears” one another. And on social media, we love to hashtag each other.

Put it together and you get #GoBears! Let’s #GoBears!

Except the Chicago Bears have a surprise for us.

As Christianne Harder noticed, the Chicago Bears have teamed with Twitter to guarantee that after every use of #GoBears on their site, a little emoji of the Chicago logo comes up.

This means great imagery like a red C showing up on official Cal accounts.
(Former O-lineman Donovan Frazer called me out for calling it red when it’s orange. I know, but with the low resolution and the dark border, it comes across as red. Plus, it’s close enough to inspire outrage when it clashes with our blue and gold.)

Well, that’s awkward.

So, what is this? A bunch of whiney fans of college football complaining about the rights of the NFL? Not quite.

The University of California owns the trademark to “Go Bears”. And just last year, the same Chicago Bears tried to hijack #BearDown in the same way... which just so happens to be trademarked by the Arizona Wildcats.

The Cal Twitterverse is already mobilizing against the Chicago team, including the official Twitter of Cal Athletics.

And Cal super-fan Mike Silver.

The outlook might be good for the real Bears, though! The Cal Grid Club of Sacramento spoke to Athletic Director Mike Williams about this incident and Cal’s options moving forward:

Plus, this whole mess has brought a much better option to the table.

Let’s hope the Chicago Bears throw in the towel sooner rather than later. And thanks to the amazingly–poor quality CGI on their Twitter announcement, it’ll be super-easy for them to replace it with #GoBearsFromChicago or #SecondCityUrsines.