THANK YOU FOR THIS. I mean that sincerely. Too many people are stuck in quippy Joss Whedon mode, and it makes me want to shoot myself directly in the face.
Former pro sports team social media manager here. I’ll start with: I get it. It pains me to see SportsCenter’s social feeds posting shit like “bro didn’t know it was a home run 😂”
Some perspective on why this happens at the team level (my experience only):
- Our league sent out a monthly scorecard with every team’s social metrics. Team leadership always wanted us as high as possible relative to our peers. This result is optimizing for virality because that leads to more engagement which leads to more followers and impressions which leads to higher rates to charge corporate sponsors
- We were slapped on the wrist if we posted too many highlights. Our regional TV partner would get pissed and argue we were making it too easy to follow the game without tuning in.
- What “we” sound like on social media was always a point of contention and often a moving target. But you won’t get numbers with a neutral voice, so unfortunately more and more accounts default to sounding like a 15 year old, or however you would describe the House of Highlights-ification of sports social content
This is not a knock on you but on your former management/leadership. There really is a quantity quality problem that the kinds of people that get into lower stake leadership positions often do not fully understand.
Posting candid footage of your head coach in a liaison with a well-known and prominent female reporter would go hyper viral for the New England Patriots social media feed, but it’s probably best not to chase numbers in such a way.
This is how seemingly every movie and show is nowadays too - everyone speaking in snarky, meta, "quippy," halfway-ironic insouciant dialogue that immediately stamps the writer as being an overly online millennial. In related news, movies and shows today are terrible.
The LPGA post highlight another flaw in the meme/patois driven posts - they are utterly lazy. As a ‘digital creator’ with access to proprietary clips you should be able to do a lot to create a piece of post game content that summarizes the contest in an enjoyable and quick to digest format. Instead it’s like they are competing to be the next @dril - and doing it badly.
Would that Rockets tweet be controversial today? The other day the Flyers mascot beat a “Penguin” unconscious with its own crutch and then threw “him” over the railing down into the 100 section, I only saw one guy from Bluesky get mad about it and everyone made fun of him. Also the Canes official account posted a tweet implying Brady Tkachuk can’t read.
I suppose this started with the "This is SportsCenter..." era of Dan and Keith punctuating the highlights with catch-phrases. Which I enjoyed. (I was also younger then).
Maybe teams should run 2 accounts. One run by a grizzled ex-player who just provides the highlights, and the other by a 25 year old communications degree holder with pop culture references.
No cap, this shit aint it fam
THANK YOU FOR THIS. I mean that sincerely. Too many people are stuck in quippy Joss Whedon mode, and it makes me want to shoot myself directly in the face.
Former pro sports team social media manager here. I’ll start with: I get it. It pains me to see SportsCenter’s social feeds posting shit like “bro didn’t know it was a home run 😂”
Some perspective on why this happens at the team level (my experience only):
- Our league sent out a monthly scorecard with every team’s social metrics. Team leadership always wanted us as high as possible relative to our peers. This result is optimizing for virality because that leads to more engagement which leads to more followers and impressions which leads to higher rates to charge corporate sponsors
- We were slapped on the wrist if we posted too many highlights. Our regional TV partner would get pissed and argue we were making it too easy to follow the game without tuning in.
- What “we” sound like on social media was always a point of contention and often a moving target. But you won’t get numbers with a neutral voice, so unfortunately more and more accounts default to sounding like a 15 year old, or however you would describe the House of Highlights-ification of sports social content
This is not a knock on you but on your former management/leadership. There really is a quantity quality problem that the kinds of people that get into lower stake leadership positions often do not fully understand.
Posting candid footage of your head coach in a liaison with a well-known and prominent female reporter would go hyper viral for the New England Patriots social media feed, but it’s probably best not to chase numbers in such a way.
I've never 1000% agreed with anything on HOS more than this
Positions like this is how you get elected
Not sure I’ve ever agreed with anything more. This stuff is a plague. Can’t stand it.
This is how seemingly every movie and show is nowadays too - everyone speaking in snarky, meta, "quippy," halfway-ironic insouciant dialogue that immediately stamps the writer as being an overly online millennial. In related news, movies and shows today are terrible.
Wholeheartedly agree with this post.
It’s also Reddit, an insufferable bunch.
The LPGA post highlight another flaw in the meme/patois driven posts - they are utterly lazy. As a ‘digital creator’ with access to proprietary clips you should be able to do a lot to create a piece of post game content that summarizes the contest in an enjoyable and quick to digest format. Instead it’s like they are competing to be the next @dril - and doing it badly.
Boomer here. Be careful Ethan lest you be lumped in with us. Not get off my post, er, lawn.
Lingo slop on team accounts is the “quippy church sign” of X.
I think it's an excess capacity thing. When you:
1. Need a job to be done
2. Need to hire a new person to do it
3. Need to make the position full-time so that the person is always available / won't leave suddenly
4. The job doesn't require a full 40 hours per week of work
Inevitably, the work expands to fill 40 hours.
Would that Rockets tweet be controversial today? The other day the Flyers mascot beat a “Penguin” unconscious with its own crutch and then threw “him” over the railing down into the 100 section, I only saw one guy from Bluesky get mad about it and everyone made fun of him. Also the Canes official account posted a tweet implying Brady Tkachuk can’t read.
I suppose this started with the "This is SportsCenter..." era of Dan and Keith punctuating the highlights with catch-phrases. Which I enjoyed. (I was also younger then).
Maybe teams should run 2 accounts. One run by a grizzled ex-player who just provides the highlights, and the other by a 25 year old communications degree holder with pop culture references.
The adults are all gone.
I can’t imagine ever following one of these accounts
🎯