Tuesday morning started off with a few interesting tidbits on the Twitters.
First, something set off Desmond to the point that he felt it necessary to fire off this baby…
I’m so amazed how people use social media 2 trash talk!😂 Sitting around with nothing better 2 do but run their mouths.Glad I was motivated🏀!
— Desmond Mason (@desmondtmason) October 9, 2012
Then Weeden and Gina followed it up in agreement…
@bweeden3 @desmondtmason Preach, y’all. What makes sports fans great also makes them terrible. Passion can quickly turn to irrationality.
— Gina Mizell (@ginamizell) October 9, 2012
Finally @glang1 dropped this to cap it off…
@ginamizell @bweeden3 @desmondtmason Brandon’s point is the biggest problem with Twitter and sports IMO. Leads to unnecessary aggravation.
— Gavin Lang (@glang1) October 9, 2012
Other people weighed in intermittently but these were the four I wanted to focus on.
Twitter (and the Internet in general, really) is such a fascinating thing to me. It creates this free market of humor and exchange of information unparalleled (and I know this sounds extreme but it’s true) in the history of the world.
My brother and I were talking the other day about podcasts and about how humans have essentially been “podcasting” — which is nothing more than two dudes sitting down talking about stuff and telling stories — since the beginning of time.
It’s not a new concept, it’s just been reformatted and redistributed in a new way.
Twitter is much of the same.
It allows people like me and the guys who run this site to take our conversations — conversations we’ve had since we were old enough to know what a double dribble was — into the public.
The purpose in doing this is often multifaceted but for me it’s been an opportunity to enjoy a creative outlet away from my sometimes-boring desk job. It’s also been a way to put a little extra cash in my pocket my wife’s purse.
While I agree with the four folks above that Twitter often gives a microphone to people who should not be doing karaoke (if you know what I mean), those people can never build (or maintain) an audience to consistently preach their irrationality to.
If you’re going around tweeting at 17-year olds about what college they should attend or dropping “hey Weeden, get off Instagram and go work on that INT problem!” on Instagram (as someone did today1 chances are high (like Miami-defensive-backs-at-a-concert high) that I’m not going to follow you and nobody else is either2.
So yes, Twitter does sometimes suck for the people (athletes, celebs, etc.) who are constantly trolled and ripped on by people who are too scared to even ask for their autographs in public, but the good outweighs the bad by quite a bit.
The good for the OSU athletic department (Lang) is that he gets to build excitement with fans online, stir up the real-life convo through a quick-hit method of distribution.
The good for players (Weeden/Desmond) is that they have an opportunity to singularly promote the things they are passionate about without having to go through PR people. It’s a direct line to people who care about them.
The good for writers and bloggers (me/Gina) is that we have an opportunity to build a tribe of readers and ask them what they want, what they’re interested in, what stories are hot. It’s also a gold mine of data and information that I don’t think I could run this blog without.
Unparalleled, indeed.
Just don’t tweet at recruits. Ever.
You can be irrationally passionate on Twitter and not be overly mean…..I hope. Otherwise i quit the internet forever.
Overall, I agree. The good far outweighs the bad. The problem is that the bad can be really, really bad.
I’ve had some conversations with a friend who works with pro athletes on social media (an NBA player, Olympic gold medalist swimmer, among others). He loves and sees extreme value in social media, obviously, but feels that trolls could be what push athletes away. Coming home from a game and seeing tweet after tweet about death threats, how they should be shot, how they are worthless and don’t deserve anything good to happen to them in their life, etc. It would be tough to deal with that on a consistent basis. I don’t think it will be enough to push athletes away for good, but something has to happen to change this environment.
I think there’s a reason Weeden has been taking a break from social media for a few days after every game.
If I were a professional athlete, I’d make the ‘block’ button my best friend. If somebody wants to get critical, that’s fine. Cross the line and you’re blocked. Make it a violent threat against me or my family and I’d get some computer genius to find out your address/place of work, and I’d turn you into the police.
Show the world that a fan has to be accountable for their actions (ban them from games/all team events, large monetary fine, something to make the point stick). Until they get around it by using fake accounts…
That’s completely warranted. I’d like to think okstate sports affect me more than most people..if not heaven help you. But I never wanted to tweet a kid anything negative. Reading Weedens mentions during ballgames is sick and I hope okstate players don’t grt tweets like that.
I might make a joke with them once or twice and maybe I should quit that. The real truth is most of them are boring avg people.
Does anyone else see the irony in venting about social media on a social media outlet?
Double Dribble. Man I loved and loathed that NES Game.
Wait is this what I’m supposed to do on this Internet thing?
“illogicality”
I bow to the superior intellect.
Yeah – People shouldn’t have a voice! Unless they set up a blog site, then they are legit.
Going back to the mid-1970′s and the first electronic e-mail and chat, I’m sure the moment the first chat room appeared on IRC, the 2nd person in the room was a troll…..spammers, trolls, Alabama fans, call them what you want, they’ve been around forever and are not going away. Lots and lots of organizations have tried to control them, you kill them off and they reincarnate under a different login tag….the free e-mail accounts create a big part of the issue as there is no cost associated with being a pin-head…..and I’ve talked to 14 year old’s that know how to set up and use reverse-proxy accounts…scary….as long as it’s electronic and connected, you’re going to have to live with it.
tehe just tragic and i have to do a essay on Facebook firing (social media