The way we use technology in our everyday lives now is just incredible when you stop and think about it. Ask me a year ago if I were to have used Twitter and I would have told you, “No way!” But after so many people encouraged me to use it as a tool for information and less about learning how “generic star athlete” went to the movies, I was hooked. Most of the boys on Team1200 use it now during the show purely for information purposes.
However, with the good always has to be the bad and the bad thing about Twitter is that no one can be really filtered, except for the fact that you have only 140 characters to make a thought. As I said before, the “generic star athlete” will most of the time stick to giving life advice in the form of a famous quote or will ask inane questions about TV or movies that no one should really care about.
Let’s just take a look at a couple of tweets from athletes that I follow on Twitter:
Chad Ochocinco or @OGOchoCinco - My movies I chose to get me through camp when I'm on long breaks, anything I left out good? (Followed by a picture of his movie collection)
(I swear that I wrote the quip about TV or movies before I did the search about athlete tweets. It’s a perfect example about how most of them are predictable)
Larry Fitzgerald or @Lfitzgerald11 - Had a light workout this morning.I feel the calm before the storm getting ready to report to camp tomorrow.Hard work is ALWAYS rewarded.FFF
(Athletes always feel the need on Twitter to give advice on life. In their minds, it’s like we’re all so inept in our own lives that we need guidance in the form of 140 characters. I would love for someone to collect all advice one-liners from athletes and make a Twitter-based 10 commandments)
That’s not nearly as bad as some of the independent thought that has surfaced lately from athletes. The worst was Argos offensive lineman Rob Murphy made light of French people and Quebec with language like “smelling foreigners” and “Frenchland”. He insists that he was just joking and that his tweets were taken out of proportion. Yeah, insulting a group of people that speak a different language and live in a different province by insinuating that they have an odour problem is hilarious. Good one, Rob...hope there’s a late-night show with free buffet.
He was fined and punished by the CFL under a social media policy, but I find it funny that some people believe that these different policies are in place in order to muzzle athletes from speaking their mind. No actually, these policies are in place to protect some of these morons from themselves, and in turn, protect their organizations and the league they play for from embarrassment due to an athlete with the equivalent brain power to a juvenile.
In the end, I think athletes have just as much right as anyone else to post whatever they want, but they need to be aware of the fact that they not only represent themselves, but organizations/corporations with their thoughts. If their thoughts don’t match the thoughts of their employers, they need to be slammed.
I’m marking down the date of this blog ‘cause in one year from now, I’m assuming that I’ll be using something other than Twitter. That’s the way the world works now...