I wanted to laugh at Daejon Love — if that’s his real name — and his impersonation of a San Francisco 49ers wide receiver. I really did.
I did laugh at a meme that was posted after Aaron Donald announced his return to the Los Angeles Rams. The top caption read “all this,” with Donald, Myles Garrett, Puka Nacua and Matthew Stafford pictured, while the bottom caption read “to stop one man,” with Love pictured at the bottom.
Memes and spoofs, such as the one Lou Young crafted at Love’s expense, are harmless. What’s not harmless is the reality of the situation. Love stole more than a million dollars from more than 20 women. Some people think that’s funny, because the women should have “known better,” or that it’s a type of retribution for “gold diggers” who scam pro athletes.
I think it’s all absurd — and that’s not just celebrity for you, but America. Hell, people are scared of lettuce these days. Speaking of greenery, one of the top shows on TV follows an American ex-pat who built a weed empire in London and has since started to move like a mob boss. Meanwhile, in real-life America, we still don’t know what really happened to Nolan Wells.
Collectively, we’ve responded to celebrity and calamity the same way we do most things in this country: humor, cynicism and disregard. The laughs, again, are harmless. But our inaction and sense of justice are not.
I listened to Stephen Jackson and LeSean McCoy weigh in on the saga. Jackson, who famously mourned the murder of his longtime friend George Floyd, offered an odd defense of Love.
“I see y’all laughing at the dude. Y’all ain’t no better than him,” Jackson said. “A lot of y’all still got hoop dreams, y’all just ain’t walking around with a uniform on. … The only difference is he’s wearing a helmet and a jersey. Most of y’all are fake, and none of y’all know what you’re talking about.”
Floyd as a reference point is important, because the trauma that Jackson holds on to should be a source of empathy, even if the stakes of Love’s alleged crimes are not life and death. Instead, the former NBA player’s focus shifts away from the victims and accountability for Love’s actions, and Jackson uses the story to punch downward on those less accomplished than he is.
McCoy leaned into his “Shady” nickname by offering a gender-based, retribution-forward narrative: “I love Daejon Love, and let me tell you why. … Every time a man does something, they want to crucify us for it. I watch women do this all the freaking time!”
This is, of course, an exercise in intellectual dishonesty. Love’s scam used fake investments to target and defraud women. What Shady did on his podcast was project his personal dealings of his dating life, and he tacitly admitted as much: “I’ve been finessed a lot,” he said.
Yung Miami speaks during the BET Experience Celebrity Basketball Game at USC’s Galen Center on June 25 in Los Angeles.
Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images for BET
Blurring the lines of decency — of mutual respect between men and women, of celebrity and accountability — are essential to scamming.
People have tried to suggest Love’s behavior is the response to an incantation from rapper Yung Miami, born Caresha Brownlee, whose “Spend Dat” is an ode to scheming and is arguably the song of the summer. “Where all my scamming ass n—-s at? / Spending that money fast,” the City Girls founder sings on the hook. “Boosting b—-es, where y’all at? / Stuffin’ that s— in y’all bag.”
The song is a case study in how we interpret entertainment and empowerment, and ultimately, the throughline for most people is not education. It’s exploitation. But before detractors of Yung Miami groan and declare, “Caresha, please,” understand that the game is bigger than her, and has been for a while.
I revisited a 2018 profile on Yung Miami and her former City Girls bandmate, JT, with the headline: “City Girls Are More Like You Than You Think.” It painted the duo in a stunningly honest light and discussed their upbringing, along with the realities of jail time for JT, who had been locked up in federal prison for credit card fraud.
This quote from music producer Kevin “Coach K” Lee got my attention.
“I don’t think [City Girls] are political, but the situations that they’ve been put in are political. This world is male-dominated and crazy,” he told Naomi Zeichner of New York Magazine’s The Cut. “Miami and JT, they’re the voice for women who have voices, but don’t get to use them. They’re like, ‘Oh I got a voice?’ Then we gon’ really let them have it.”
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Daejon Love is no innovator. Like Jackson, he disregards the meritocracy and self-esteem of former athletes who didn’t make the professional ranks. Like McCoy, he offers commentary that suggests a disdain for women. There are times when a scammer’s actions sound like a cry for help, or in the case of City Girls, is more of an F-U declaration. And then, there are folks like Love who scam for the love of the game.
Being fair, that “love of the game” is bigger than our dear friend Daejon. The game, of course, is greed. Capitalism. The love of money over everything else. The Federal Bank of Cleveland just released a report about the record number of wage thefts occurring in the United States:
In fiscal year 2025, the US Department of Labor recovered more than $259 million in back wages and damages owed to 176,957 workers (US Department of Labor, 2025). These recoveries were in response to various forms of what is termed “wage theft,” including unpaid overtime, unlawful wage deductions, and minimum-wage violations. However, this figure comprises only the amount recovered through government enforcement. Existing research estimates that from 2013 through 2015, workers in the 10 most populous states experienced minimum-wage-violation underpayments of $8 billion annually, affecting 2.4 million workers, with the average affected worker underpaid by about $3,300 per year.
Daejon Love
By now, you’ve heard about the Los Angeles Clippers’ scamming ways, and how Mark Walters’ majority sale of the Los Angeles Lakers has drawn scrutiny as he faces federal investigation. Terrell Owens, a real former 49ers receiver, said the energy the feds are directing toward Love should be directed toward NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, who is linked to the largest welfare scandal in Mississippi history.
“[Niners] in the news again for all the wrong reasons. And I know this is probably not good to say, but you look at what he’s done, scamming women out of X amount of dollars, Brett Favre scammed a lot of people outta money too, and he’s still walking around. So if that’s the case, Brett Favre should be in jail too,” Owens said.
I can hear detractors of this column now. “It ain’t that deep,” you’ll tell me.
I wish that were true.
But the response to Love’s shenanigans suggest something different, from rich and famous former athletes who see this as retribution against women, to the people who will say and spend anything to be in close proximity to fame.
There’s a picture of Love looking over a birthday cake with a likeness of a Niners No. 7 jersey. The irony is caked on thick, to put it mildly. For starters, that’s Colin Kaepernick’s jersey, not Love’s. A decade after he kneeled, Kaepernick’s status in cultural history is undisputed.
But there’s another reason why “love” shouldn’t be anywhere on that jersey. We’ve become far too cynical about things that really matter.
Ken J. Makin is a freelance writer and the host of the Makin’ A Difference podcast. Before and after commentating, he’s thinking about his wife and his sons.