We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lev Argiropoulos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lev, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?

I have autism and for the past five years, I have had a special interest on Dario Šarić, an NBA player who is not particularly popular or even that good if you ranked every player in the NBA. My whole foray into sports content creation and sports writing came from this special interest, which started in 2020. I gained a bit of a following on a fan account I had for Dario, and things were looking good. In July of 2021, he tore his ACL during the Finals. At the time, I was 19 and still had a huge learning curve ahead of me on how to compartmentalize my special interest and understand that not everyone had one. I projected a lot of my emotions onto Dario and experienced the world through the NBA — it was definitely an escapism thing during COVID, when I was trying to find myself while stuck in my parents’ house — so it genuinely felt like my world was crashing down on me when Dario tore his ACL. I cried every day for two weeks, and even got bullied off of Twitter for a little while because I guess people found it funny that I was so devastated over this random player getting injured.

Anyway, here’s where the kindness comes in. Because sports fandom is so proximity-based, I had a lot of followers and mutuals who lived near me in real life. One night that summer, while I was working a shift at the pizzeria I worked at (and trying not to cry), one of my mutuals came in and gave me a bag of candy and a hug. That moment made me feel loved and seen, and helped me realize that I actually did have people who understood me. I still think about it all the time.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi!! My name is Lev and I have been writing, posting, and making content about basketball for the past five years. I’m probably most well-known for my special interest on Dario Šarić (which has gone viral multiple times), but I also write and research a lot about fanfiction in sports, as well as mythmaking and afterlife in sports. I like to think really deeply about the ways we consume and participate in sports as entertainment and as a product — and a ton of philosophical questions come out of that that are so much fun to explore. Basically, if you come to lisco_2000, get ready to think about basketball differently than you did twenty minutes ago.

I’m proud of a lot of things, but I think I’m most proud of the way I’ve helped basketball fans like me — people who are queer, neurodivergent, or otherwise feel different — become more confident in expressing their love for sports. I get a lot of emails and DMs from people telling me that my content makes them think differently about sports, sports fandom, and their place in it all, and it always warms my heart to hear. My brand is sunshine and rainbows, always being kind, and being empathetic towards everyone, and if I can make someone think differently and more positively about something considered taboo or cringe in sports fandom, then mission accomplished.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I’ve had this John Green quote saved to my phone for over a decade now:

“I mean I haven’t published a novel for three and a half years, so…yeah. I feel this way all the time. People often use the phrase ‘literally the worst’ colloquially, but I have on countless occasions felt that I am literally the worst writer on Earth, and that I am a complete fraud. I feel like a fraud all the time, and I still don’t feel like I know how to write a novel, and at this point I doubt I ever will.”

It sounds quite doomer-ish, but it’s inspired me a lot over the years. I originally saved it because I felt like I wasn’t writing and posting my fanfictions fast enough when I was about 13 years old, and I still often feel like I’m ‘literally the worst’ when I have writer’s block or creator’s block. However, I’ll always know that if John Green can feel like a total flop, I can too. It’s reassuring to know that both a successful author and a teenager trying to update their fanfiction weekly can feel the same way that I do, and this quote serves as a reminder to take a step back every once in a while.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Honestly, I learned how to do social media just by growing up on the internet. I was working algorithms by the time I was 12 in order to get my posts about my favorite bands to do well on Instagram and Tumblr. For me, it’s always been all about authenticity. I’ve never known anything else. A lot of autistic people ‘mask’ their neurodivergence to fit in better, but I never even realized that was an option. I’ve just always been really loud about the things I love, and I’ve never thought to shy away from expressing myself.

In terms of how I grew *this* following, it’s mostly been a mix of quick thinking, humor, self-awareness, and playing with the idea that people think my whole deal is a joke. I always say you can’t crush a sunbeam — and I think that’s what people like about me and what I do. It’s all sunshine and rainbows, and it’s a break from the usual downward spiral of doomerism, anger, and general hate in popular sports discourse.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lisco2000.carrd.co
• Instagram: lisco_2000
• Twitter: lisco_2000
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@lisco_2000
• Other: tiktok: lisco2000