The rise of social media has made athletes’ Twitter pages sources of valuable information. The world now knows that LeBron James takes mental notes and that Chad Ochocinco is about as insane as he seemed the entire time.

Coupled with the power of Twitter in today’s sports world is another fairly recent and extremely hilarious by-product of the instant gratification, Internet-in-my-pocket culture in which we live.

Athlete. Dong. Photos.

Now, we can assume that photos of this nature have been traveling cyberspace and the picture message network for as long as either has been in existence. It’s a fact that countless dudes, sober or not, have decided from time to time that it’s a good idea to snap an awkward photo – candid or staged – of themselves hanging out with their wangs out and then send that photo via cell phone or the Internet as a pleasant surprise to their oftentimes unsuspecting lady friends.

And thanks to certain similar photos of prominent athletes falling into the wrong hands over the past year or so, we’ve learned – among other things – that at Santonio Holmes’ house, there’s more than curtains hanging in the shower; that Greg Oden is who we thought he was (although I don’t think Denny Green will be letting him off the hook); and that in addition to being a narcissistic, attention-hoarding diva Brett Favre (allegedly) is also a creeper who enjoys a good pair of Crocs.

Background note: For those of you who haven’t heard, a woman who worked as a sideline reporter for the Jets during Favre’s only season in New Jersey has claimed that the future Hall of Famer sent her dong photos, one of which contained Favre wearing Crocs. Weird, but funny. (Insert joke about ESPN/Peter King’s obsession with Favre here.)

Grady Sizemore, Jeff Reed, George Hill, Martellus Bennett, Evan Longoria – all of them have also hatched the brilliant idea to take photos of themselves and their D’s, send them to girlfriends or girls they were pursuing at the time, then subsequently make said females angry enough to release the photos for all to see (or falling victim to an opportunist) while ignoring the fact that they are highly visible professional athletes.

We all know that too many athletes are forced to grow up too fast and that too few of them learn how to mature or handle fame. We see the Pacman Joneses and Ben Roethlisbergers of the world getting into legal trouble because of their sickening sense of entitlement and their perception that they’re simply better than everyone else.

Here’s where the athlete schlong photos come in: We as fans should be encouraged that these guys are channeling their stupidity in a new and unintentionally comical way. Unlike other male pro athletes abusively objectifying women or getting involved with violence or drugs and telling themselves, “I can get away with it,” this new wave of pioneers thinks to themselves, “I can send my ween into cyberspace so my girl can see it. I won’t piss her off, causing her to take her anger out through releasing those photos of me. I can get away with it.”

It’s a phenomenon that can attribute its roots to the age-old invincibility complex pro athletes seem to have and its momentum to our “anything and everything about somebody famous is news” point of view. At least this stuff is harmless (for everyone 18 and older) – we can laugh about it, make running jokes with our friends, and shake our heads at how dumb famous people can be sometimes.

And as A-Rod and Tiger Woods have shown us, some of our top athletes are tightly manufactured machines that explode at the first sign of something they aren’t prepared for. It’s sort of refreshing to hear Greg Oden apologizing during a press conference – not for using performance enhancers, not for cheating on his wife, but for the fact that he got bored one day, threw on a do-rag, took his pants off and had a photo shoot.

So until Big Ben gets Little Ben under control, until John Calipari mentions the words “go to class” to his players, until Roger Clemens cuts his losses and owns up to taking steroids, keep the dong photos coming – things could be worse.

One caveat though: Ambitious politicians shouldn’t learn too much from Oden and friends. Imagine the disappointment on poor Marie Antoinette’s face if Napoleon pix-messaged a rocket shot to her back in the day.