Welcome to Cheesehead Origins, an offseason series geared toward showcasing Packer fans with interesting fandom origin stories! CheeseheadTV is devoted to Packer fans worldwide, and we want to hear (and share) your stories. 

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Spend enough time reading about the Packers on Twitter and you’re almost certain to come across tweets by Erin Alyce (@herooine). Over the last handful of years she’s developed a large following on the platform, largely due to her sense of humor and her edited video and image content. 

Erin also happens to be one of the earlier people I connected with on the platform outside of people I know in real life. She pulled me into writing opportunities with Game On Wisconsin and has been a big supporter of my writing and work, which I greatly appreciate!

Erin’s personality alone makes her a person I wanted to feature in this series, but she also has an interesting fan story in that for nearly her entire life she’s lived in Chicago Bears territory.

One might expect living in a rival fan city to be tough, but Erin believes she has it easier than Bears fans in Wisconsin.

“I would imagine it’d be so much worse being a Packers rival living in Green Bay because their success is in your face every day,” Erin observed. “But in almost every season I’ve been a fan, I’ve always had the last laugh. Most of my friends are Bears fans, so I will say the biggest positive is I’ve won A LOT of bets. The other is that I’m really good at defending myself when the trash talk commences, because no matter what they say, the Packers are better in about 69 ways so I can always spin an argument or a point to dunk on the Bears.”

Erin was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, so it’s not as though she brought her fandom with her from Wisconsin. Like many fans who live out of (and in) the state of Wisconsin, it's a fandom she inherited.

“My dad grew up a huge sports fan but he didn’t have much influence in his life on what teams to cheer for,” she said. “When it came time to pick fandoms, he mostly went with Chicago teams due to growing up in the Chicago suburbs. However, he really fell in love with the history of the Packers, VInce Lombardi and being a fan-owned franchise, so he went all in on them, which rubbed off on me.”

Erin isn’t a baseball fan and “recently rescinded” her Blackhawks support, though she is still a pretty big Bulls fan. She recalls her dad being a big sports fan and watching sports year round, which resulted in her playing a bunch of sports as a child and developing a fierce competitiveness.

“While I never played football, it was by far my favorite to watch as well as my dad’s,” she said. “We’ve bonded over the Packers in a big way.”

Her dad started taking her to games occasionally, and they text “practically daily” about the Packers. In 1996 when she was six years old, Erin received Packers stock as a gift. When she was a little older she received her first jersey: Ahman Green, who remains one of her favorite players.

Now an adult, Erin still gets to quite a few games, whether it’s with family or friends. 

“I used to get up to games a lot the last few years, maybe three or four a year. HOwever, it will be a lot less frequent since I moved to Indianapolis last year,” she said. 

Erin’s go-to tailgate spot is usually a bar, particularly the Green Bay Distillery, and she considers bloody marys to be a must-have for any Packer game. When she’s watching games from home or elsewhere, the drinks are an important part of the ritual.

“While I was living in Chicago I frequented a Packer bar in River North called O’Leary’s on gameday,” she said. “I haven’t found a place in Indianapolis yet, so if anyone has suggestions please let me know! At home I’m usually drinking cocktails and watching with my boyfriend as I doomscroll through Packers Twitter as everyone starts the apocalyptic panic 30 seconds into the game.”

For those of you who like to follow along on Twitter during the games, Erin said you can usually find her live-tweeting, complete with massive gameday anxiety and plenty of memes and gif reactions.

Speaking of memes, Erin has become pretty well-known for a wide variety of viral video and image content. On draft night, you can see her tweeting out jersey swaps maid in MS Paint, which are truly masterpieces. She used to do social content for Game On Wisconsin, and created a wide variety of viral videos, including one take on Donald Driver’s epic touchdown in 2010 that featured Driver getting past/through all of the stressors of the year 2020.

But her most successful piece of content by far came right before the playoffs began this past January: an Avengers: Endgame spoof that featured the returns of all the injured Packers and everything coming together for the team exactly at the right time (little did we know…).

The video currently has more than 800 responses, 7200 retweets and 19.3k likes, spurred on in part by numerous Packers (including Aaron Rodgers himself) liking, retweeting and quote-tweeting it.

“It was crazy,” Erin remembers of the day. “Those kinds of videos take a lot of work for me because I have absolutely no training. So it’s always incredibly rewarding to see people enjoy something I spent a lot of time on.”

It got so much attention that Erin had to mute notifications quickly. The fact that there were so many players interacting with it made it “surreal” for Erin. 

Of course, the season did not end with an Endgame-like victory, especially because Erin’s video would likely have gotten even greater attention had the team gone on an epic winning streak with all their stars back. But the fact that she made something that so many people, including players, enjoyed was “a really great feeling” for her.

Erin’s content creation dabbling goes far beyond goofy tweets and memes. She’s also become involved in the podcast sphere over the last couple years.

She sees her niche as being “goofy/witty with a hint of vulgarity,” and that is exemplified in her work with On Brand & Off Topic (@onbrandofftopic), a podcast she does with Jimmy Christensen and Todd Varney. She sees it as an uncensored sports-ish show in which the three give their “semi-educated” sports takes while making jokes at each other’s expense. 

“A few weeks ago we had a segment where we debated which NHL mascots we’d rather be stuck on a desert island with,” she said. “Todd and Jimmy are a hilarious but chaotic combo, so I’m just there to steer a ship and make a joke now and then.”

Her other project is Last Call Lambeau, a Packers-focused podcast she does with Monty Moore (@ferd_turgeson) and Sam (@sammwichh) as part of the Game On Wisconsin network of shows. 

“Each week we build a drink and talk Packers with our “booze” segment, NFL with ou r”mixer” segment, then have a weird “garnish” segment. For example, we create theme park rides based on NFL players. It’s a lot of fun. We have some drinks and get goofier as the show goes on.”

Erin notes the market for detailed, serious Packers analysis is rather oversaturated at the moment, and being serious “isn’t really [her] style,” so she and her co-hosts lean into the light-hearted side of things instead, and focus on staying weird and positive to “balance out all the negative.”

“This community can be toxic sometimes, but it’s really awesome sometimes too,” she said.

She notes a time when JJ Lahey started a GoFundMe for her to help pay her cat’s medical bills after she got sick, and how her notifications go nuts every time Jaire Alexander makes a play with people knowing each interception, tipped pass or tackle “gets her pregnant.”

Speaking of positivity, even after a horrendously heartbreaking end to the Packers season, Erin is still feeling good about the Packers heading into the 2022 season. She’s particularly looking forward to watching this defense come together. 

“I am beyond stoked to see what Joe Barry can do with this roster and a second year with the team,” she said. “They invested in some key pieces this offseason between Jaire Alexander, De’Vondre Campbell and Rasul Douglass, not to mention grabbing Walker and Wyatt in the first round. This has high potential to be a top 5 defense in the NFL and I cannot wait.”

Erin is also looking forward to just being able to appreciate high-quality Packer football again, and this time without as much drama. 

“There’s been so much drama around Aaron Rodgers retiring and blah blah blah and it’s made me realize how lucky we are to have a team that has been successful for so long,’ she said. “I know people will debate what ‘success’ is in the NFL regarding Lombardi trophies and what not, and they certainly have a point. However, looking around the North it could be a hell of a lot worse from a fan’s point of view, so I’m going to enjoy the games. I guess you could say I’m excited to annoy people with positivity for six months.”

In closing, I asked Erin if she had any stories or shoutouts she wanted to share. T to copy and paste what she said here as it’s something I’d like to endorse as well. 

“Our good friend Neil (Neebles (@The_Neebles) as many know him on Twitter) sadly passed away last week after battling an illness. So I want to take this time shout-out this website where people can donate to help with his family’s medical bills (he had a wife and 2 young kids) or offer condolences and leave a happy memory. https://everloved.com/life-of/neil-margeson/ .”

And she had one final remark before completing her responses:

“Also, Robin smells.”
 

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Big thanks to Erin Alyce (@herooine) for contributing and for being such a big source of positivity and hilarity over the years!

Next week: some fun/interesting stuff in the works. Stay tuned!