I don’t think there’s ever been a bigger double-edged sword than social media.
On one hand, it allows players and fans to interact, even owners and fans in the case of Mehrdad Ghodoussi and Jamie Reuben, and we can get a sense of being close to our heroes that we’d never have got before.
Unfortunately, the flip side is that it allows players and fans to interact … and some fans just don’t seem to know when to stop, what is or isn’t appropriate or seem to forget that it’s an actual human being they’re talking to through their screen.
Football fans are passionate, we all know that, and a lot of them see the game through a different lens to those who play it, so when a player makes a move away from the club, some fans often see that as a personal attack on them, that they have been personally slighted by this player’s actions. Meanwhile, the player may have had to move due to circumstances beyond their control, they might have been told to move by the manager. We never know the real reasons behind a transfer.
And yet, fans will flock to the player’s social media and call them all the names under the sun as if that’s somehow justified.
This rant hasn’t just come out of thin air either, someone on twitter posted the below screengrab with a caption saying “Dubravka congratulates Bruno on the birth of his baby, and our “fans” reply like this.”
People actually thought it was a good idea to comment under Dubravka’s message of congratulations to Bruno and call him out for moving to Manchester United. In what way is this normal behaviour?
Should There Be More Punishment For Online Trolls?
Yes. It needs stamping out.
No. Emotions ride high sometimes.
Seriously, think before you post online, your actions feed the trolls and like it or not, you represent the entire fanbase. All it takes is for one post like that and suddenly the narrative is “Newcastle fans are ….”
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Great piece Ash. This is a problem that football as a whole needs to tackle. But, sadly, they won’t.