The Internet Has All The Rowing Jokes After Olivia Jade Defends Herself With 'Drowning' Post

Fuller House actress Lori Loughlin made headlines two years ago in 2019 due to her role in a college admissions scandal that ultimately sent her to prison, and now daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli has incited all kinds of jokes for a recent video she posted about "drowning." The college admissions scandal revealed that Lori Loughlin and her husband paid a $500,000 bribe for their daughters to be named as recruits to the University of Southern California crew team, when neither daughter was a rower.

So, Olivia Jade's choice of a water metaphor in her video proved to be pretty unfortunate if her goal was for viewers to take her message seriously. The 21-year-old Olivia Jade posted a video on TikTok about being publicly shamed, which led to her comparing her situation to drowning based on the words of a "very inspirational woman." Take a look at what she had to say, and how she set herself up for an abundance of rowing jokes in the comments!

@oliviajadeg

If you're like me, your first reaction to Olivia Jade's TikTok was the realization that she's the spitting image of her mom, but it's hard to ignore the irony of her choosing a water metaphor to describe the situation that involves her admission to USC as a "rower." She clearly had the best of intentions with her video, and some people in the comments took her words to heart. Others, however, went for some rowing jokes. Just take a look:

One person in the comments just had to point out that being on the crew team generally means needing to know how to swim to avoid drowning. Sure, one of the goals of crew is to actually stay in the boat while racing, so swimming isn't the most important skill, but the rules don't really apply when it comes to faking status as a rower.

Of course, even if Olivia Jade was indeed a USC-level rower, she couldn't save herself from drowning by rowing if she didn't have a boat handy! Or any experience rowing. Fortunately, Olivia Jade seemed to be in a pretty safe location when delivering her speech about drowning.

Considering that a number of coaches were named in the college bribery scandal that sent Olivia Jade's parents to prison, that comment works as both a burn and a joke!

Is this one a joke or a genuine question? There are no emojis, exclamation points, or ALL CAPS letters, and the TikTok commenter raises a valid question. That said, I can't imagine anybody going to the trouble of dropping a rowing comment on Olivia Jade's video that doesn't actually mention crew without poking fun at the situation.

"Just row don't drown" is good advice for anybody in certain circumstances, really. It would be more helpful for people who have crew boats handy (and know how to pull in them) if they're facing trouble on the water, but "don't drown" is not so bad as a reminder, right?

In all seriousness, Olivia Jade might have set herself up for some inevitable mocking as soon as she decided to film a video on a boat using a metaphor about drowning. As a former rower, I can attest to the fact that she was most definitely not in the kind of boats that crew teams use for racing while filming the video.

Only time will tell if and when the infamy surrounding Olivia Jade and her family due to the college admissions scandal will fade, if at all. Lori Loughlin served her time in prison and was released, but that doesn't mean the story is finished, which seems to be the point that Olivia Jade was more or less trying to make with her video. Loughlin was dropped from her jobs on some existing shows (and even Hallmark as a whole) when the scandal broke, and Olivia Jade is clearly still being affected two years later.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).