Sports: Reputations in Social Media

Philadelphia is a city unlike any other where sports is concerned, at least to anyone who is familiar with the atmosphere. Philadelphia fans are both loyal and ruthless, kind and horrific, supportive and so quick to turn the other cheek. This has been existant forever, but in an age where social media is a booming industry it appears to be more prevalant; and Philadelphia is not the only guilty party. The carnage that is left in the wake of a terrible performance by a professional athlete is no longer just left behind in the stadium upon the completion of the game. It lurks on the internet and seeps into the social media accounts of the despondent athletes, rubbing salt in an already palpable wound.

Take, for example, the Eagles quarterback Michael Vick. In the opening game of the season today, Vick seemed to disappoint Eagles fans in the worst way. Each year the Eagles fans anticipate the "dream team" and each year they are immediately reminded not to buy into it. Michael Vick kept this streak alive when he threw four interceptions during the first game. Not only were these interceptions thrown, but they were thrown directly into the arms of a weak Cleveland Browns defense (the Eagles were predicted to win 34-16, but actually only pulled away with a narrow 17-16 victory). The insults and the upset of the performance are clearly still resonating in Vick's mind, not only on account of his pressure on himself, but also through the wonderful world of Twitter. Some of the most popular tweets at the moment are as follows:

@FauxJohnMadden: This is one of the worst days Mike Vick has had in a "dawg pound" ever.

@EvilMikeTomlin: Mike Vick went to throw DeSean Jackson a towel in the locker room after the game, but it was intercepted and returned for a TD

@noahrosenfeldt: As for mike Vick 4 ints is Unacceptable and Andy Reid Doing his old thing bein a moron throwing the ball 56 times

And let's not even get started on the bombardment of insults that rained upon Penn State's kicker Sam Ficken after missing four field goal attempts in this weekend's match up against Virginia. Much of it resembled this:

@dakotadebellis: Sam ficken shouldn't even come back to state college because he's going to get lynched

While you feel for the players in the times of grief, fans also use Twitter to shower them with affection and compliments. David Akers, a kicker for San Francisco, hit a 63 yard field goal today and was blown away with support from his fans.

The basic principle I am attempting to reach is this: The world of professional sports is intimidating for the athletes, especially the rookies. They play on a terribly large platform and the world of social media has made a seemingly gigantic platform even larger; even those who are not able to watch the game can instantly see just what has happened. Clear proof of this lies in the way in which the United States seemed to know the outcome of most Olympic events before they had aired on prime time television.Yet this is both a blessing and a curse, and I'm sure the world of social media will only grow more impactful as time progresses. Hopefully, for the athletes' sake, with this sure to come growth also comes a more positive era of fanship through the internet airwaves.

After all, everyone should take a lesson from Penn State's punter Alex Butterworth, who took to the internet last night:

@alexxxbutters: I would trust @sficken1 with any kick in any game anytime and from every distance he's gonna win us a lot of games this year and beyond

Maybe one day, all sports-related tweets will be this positive. Something does tell me, however, that this is wishful thinking on the part of my naive mind.