We need to talk about social media and fans

[pkonline]

Football is emotion but clearly information overload and misinformation is having an affect on the wellbeing on many fans.

 

Social media, fan channels and news agencies are all about clickbait. Back to back 24/7 negative stories. I’m sure some fans on here would have had sleepless nights the past few days, having digested all the alarmist stuff online. The recent PSR stuff crystallised the downside of social media, online, videos, fan channels etc Up until today we’ve seen scare stories, rumours, and often just made up nonsense.

That harms individuals and whole groups of supporters.

 

What’s the solution? Look after yourself, shut down the noise, limit what you watch and read.

 

Enjoy supporting your club through thick and thin.

 

[Skidmark]

It's society. 

 

Shocking/depressing headlines get views, sell newspapers and have been for decades. 

 

What you have to do as I mentioned a few weeks ago is stop caring so much. It's a football club at the end of the day. Yes many view it almost as a religion, attending the games like church, paying our tithe in the form of the season ticket/match ticket, but there is so much more to life than football. 

 

Leicester City and the way it is being run is a shambles. Once you realise this, it helps you think 'Why should I care as much?' Enjoy the games, don't look too far into the negativity and surround your life with other interests.

 

Mental health is a fragile thing, and I won't let Leicester City affect mine. 

[OntarioFox]

46 minutes ago, pkonline said:

Football is emotion but clearly information overload and misinformation is having an affect on the wellbeing on many fans.

 

Social media, fan channels and news agencies are all about clickbait. Back to back 24/7 negative stories. I’m sure some fans on here would have had sleepless nights the past few days, having digested all the alarmist stuff online. The recent PSR stuff crystallised the downside of social media, online, videos, fan channels etc Up until today we’ve seen scare stories, rumours, and often just made up nonsense.

That harms individuals and whole groups of supporters.

 

What’s the solution? Look after yourself, shut down the noise, limit what you watch and read.

 

Enjoy supporting your club through thick and thin.

 

Finally deleted Xitter last week after a solid year of debating it. I'd strongly recommend others hooked on it to do the same.

It's been liberating. I realised gradually that I wasn't enjoying using it anymore, despite feeling obliged to stick around after years of building a decent chunk of followers. The decline under Musky Boy has been unbelievable though - it's now just a transparently awful place where the worst of society - the racists, scammers, perverts, religious nutters, chancers and bad actors - thrive. And that's without even mentioning the epidemic of AI and bots that have replaced human interaction.

 

Sports are just a crystallisation of the wider rot on the site - intentional spreading of misinformation and often outright lies, to feed agendas and conspiracies, because that's what gets the most clicks and ad revenue. They don't care one bit about consequences - it's good for business!
 

The same goes for Facebook, which I'm resigned to having to keep until my boomer relatives, for whom it's my only point of contact, shuffle off this mortal coil. Sometimes I catch myself scrolling through my "wall" and realise that it's original function - to check in on one another and see what your friends and family have been up to - has been lost under a sea of content farming, political bait and AI slop that you didn't ask to see.

Edited 14 January 2025 by OntarioFox

[Daggers]

53 minutes ago, pkonline said:

Football is emotion but clearly information overload and misinformation is having an affect on the wellbeing on many fans.

 

Social media, fan channels and news agencies are all about clickbait. Back to back 24/7 negative stories. I’m sure some fans on here would have had sleepless nights the past few days, having digested all the alarmist stuff online. The recent PSR stuff crystallised the downside of social media, online, videos, fan channels etc Up until today we’ve seen scare stories, rumours, and often just made up nonsense.

That harms individuals and whole groups of supporters.

 

What’s the solution? Look after yourself, shut down the noise, limit what you watch and read.

 

Enjoy supporting your club through thick and thin.

 

 

[purpleronnie]

I wonder what people get from social media all i hear is negativity.

[Bert]

The problem per se is that people have caught wind that you can make money on a free platform from it all, once you have a decent amount of followers/subscribers. Some people think because they have a large following they’re instantly right, this causes arguments and differing of opinions which causes viewing levels to rise. 
 

Just look at Mark Goldbridge for example. For a start, that’s not even his real name. He’s gone from this nerdy guy who comes out with one liners and over the top reactions because some people like to see it to now being invited onto podcasts with some big names, whilst making enough money to call it a living. Don’t get me wrong, they’re clever because they know their target audiences. Similar to the SDMN, a group of average lads growing up who are now recognisable around the world to a lot of people, self made multi millionaires living the life that lots of people can only ever dream of. From playing in charity matches against football legends, to getting all sorts of things gifted to them from massive companies because of how they’re able to expose a product.

 

There are so many people now that are simply fans who have gained a large social media following from saying something controversial (Rory Jennings springs to mind) that where if I were a professional footballer being regularly critiqued by them having never played the game it would boil my piss to a next level. 

 

Personally speaking the best thing I ever did was get rid of twitter. Most of the games I wasn’t even paying full attention but more concerned about what I was going to be saying for some sort of interaction.

[Tommy G]

20 minutes ago, Bert said:

The problem per se is that people have caught wind that you can make money on a free platform from it all, once you have a decent amount of followers/subscribers. Some people think because they have a large following they’re instantly right, this causes arguments and differing of opinions which causes viewing levels to rise. 
 

Just look at Mark Goldbridge for example. For a start, that’s not even his real name. He’s gone from this nerdy guy who comes out with one liners and over the top reactions because some people like to see it to now being invited onto podcasts with some big names, whilst making enough money to call it a living. Don’t get me wrong, they’re clever because they know their target audiences. Similar to the SDMN, a group of average lads growing up who are now recognisable around the world to a lot of people, self made multi millionaires living the life that lots of people can only ever dream of. From playing in charity matches against football legends, to getting all sorts of things gifted to them from massive companies because of how they’re able to expose a product.

 

There are so many people now that are simply fans who have gained a large social media following from saying something controversial (Rory Jennings springs to mind) that where if I were a professional footballer being regularly critiqued by them having never played the game it would boil my piss to a next level. 

 

Personally speaking the best thing I ever did was get rid of twitter. Most of the games I wasn’t even paying full attention but more concerned about what I was going to be saying for some sort of interaction.

Daily Mail I'm afraid but he's made some serious dough

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13787273/Mark-Goldbridges-STAGGERING-earnings-2023-controversial-Man-United-YouTuber-blamed-causing-problems-Old-Trafford-year.html

[StonyFox]

43 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

Finally deleted Xitter last week after a solid year of debating it. I'd strongly recommend others hooked on it to do the same.

It's been liberating. I realised gradually that I wasn't enjoying using it anymore, despite feeling obliged to stick around after years of building a decent chunk of followers. The decline under Musky Boy has been unbelievable though - it's now just a transparently awful place where the worst of society - the racists, scammers, perverts, religious nutters, chancers and bad actors - thrive. And that's without even mentioning the epidemic of AI and bots that have replaced human interaction.

 

Sports are just a crystallisation of the wider rot on the site - intentional spreading of misinformation and often outright lies, to feed agendas and conspiracies, because that's what gets the most clicks and ad revenue. They don't care one bit about consequences - it's good for business!
 

The same goes for Facebook, which I'm resigned to having to keep until my boomer relatives, for whom it's my only point of contact, shuffle off this mortal coil. Sometimes I catch myself scrolling through my "wall" and realise that it's original function - to check in on one another and see what your friends and family have been up to - has been lost under a sea of content farming, political bait and AI slop that you didn't ask to see.

This is very similar to my experience, did away with twitter years ago as it was offering zero positivity in my life. The same with Facebook, where I only use it for family contacts, but it's just full of suggested post's, ads, and real posts from 3 days ago. I'm most active on Instagram, but even that is slowly becoming the same, full of scammers, ads and doom scrolling. 

 

 

[Bert]

6 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Daily Mail I'm afraid but he's made some serious dough

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13787273/Mark-Goldbridges-STAGGERING-earnings-2023-controversial-Man-United-YouTuber-blamed-causing-problems-Old-Trafford-year.html

And this is what I mean. Younger enthusiasts will see that and think why can’t I do that? It’s madness. 

[pkonline]

What is sad, is that I can kinda understand newspapers etc doing this to fans, but I don't really understand why fan channels and other fans want to upset your own. Strange.

[Matt]

Football isn’t supposed to be a TV drama.

 

Unfortunately at the top level it’s become a TV drama and that’s why amongst other issues people are starting to resent it.

 

Edited 14 January 2025 by Matt

[Livid]

There was a point I was thinking of blocking #LCFC on twitter, now i just ignore or don't comment. An awful lot seems to be vague controversial headlines or comments to try and get engagement in some form.

 

I very rarely comment in the Leicester City section on here. I just can't be bothered, I go straight to the general discussion section.

[Foxdiamond]

2 hours ago, pkonline said:

Football is emotion but clearly information overload and misinformation is having an affect on the wellbeing on many fans.

 

Social media, fan channels and news agencies are all about clickbait. Back to back 24/7 negative stories. I’m sure some fans on here would have had sleepless nights the past few days, having digested all the alarmist stuff online. The recent PSR stuff crystallised the downside of social media, online, videos, fan channels etc Up until today we’ve seen scare stories, rumours, and often just made up nonsense.

That harms individuals and whole groups of supporters.

 

What’s the solution? Look after yourself, shut down the noise, limit what you watch and read.

 

Enjoy supporting your club through thick and thin.

 

Do not under any circumstances listen to Talksport

[Guest Bilo]

I binned off Twitter over a year ago personally and recently for work purposes. It's been absolutely liberating.

 

Some of the narcissistic behaviour witnessed on social media is embarrassing for all involved and seems largely to be a grift for a lot of people with absolutely no usable skills in the traditional job market or indeed talent. We now have hundreds of grifting talentless, thick as shit wannabes, who would have been told not to give up the day job in more civilised times, desperately vying for attention by being as dishonest, outrageous, irritating, embarrassing or offensive as possible. 

 

It's not just in football either. You'll see some absolute morons filming industrial estates and starting rows with security staff, then flying the drone over a timber yard in Tamworth. The content is of horrific quality and the creators usually have the talent of a tumour, but they're all fighting for what seems be near limitless ad revenue by making their content as attention grabbing, outrageous or irritating as possible. We're actually living in Idiocracy by now. 

[Raj]

In the bigger scheme of things when compared to  family, health and money coming in its not that important i and i don't lose any sleep over it whatsoever.

 

 

Edited 14 January 2025 by Raj

[Daggers]

13 minutes ago, Bilo said:

We now have hundreds of grifting talentless, thick as shit wannabes, who would have been told not to give up the day job in more civilised times, desperately vying for attention by being as dishonest, outrageous, irritating, embarrassing or offensive as possible...all fighting for what seems be near limitless ad revenue by making their content as attention grabbing, outrageous or irritating as possible. We're actually living in Idiocracy by now. 

But aside from that, is there anything @Raj does that doesn't annoy you?

[Adster]

2 hours ago, OntarioFox said:

Finally deleted Xitter last week after a solid year of debating it. I'd strongly recommend others hooked on it to do the same.

It's been liberating. I realised gradually that I wasn't enjoying using it anymore, despite feeling obliged to stick around after years of building a decent chunk of followers. The decline under Musky Boy has been unbelievable though - it's now just a transparently awful place where the worst of society - the racists, scammers, perverts, religious nutters, chancers and bad actors - thrive. And that's without even mentioning the epidemic of AI and bots that have replaced human interaction.

 

Sports are just a crystallisation of the wider rot on the site - intentional spreading of misinformation and often outright lies, to feed agendas and conspiracies, because that's what gets the most clicks and ad revenue. They don't care one bit about consequences - it's good for business!
 

The same goes for Facebook, which I'm resigned to having to keep until my boomer relatives, for whom it's my only point of contact, shuffle off this mortal coil. Sometimes I catch myself scrolling through my "wall" and realise that it's original function - to check in on one another and see what your friends and family have been up to - has been lost under a sea of content farming, political bait and AI slop that you didn't ask to see.

I stopped using any social media about 5 weeks ago, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Was hard at first but it's genuinely changed my life. 

[AKCJ]

As long as there are gullible people, there will be other people trying to fool them.

[dmayne7]

2 hours ago, purpleronnie said:

I wonder what people get from social media all i hear is negativity.

Came into this thread and it's like more like the FT equivalent of a self-help group .

 

Why any grown adult would spend loads of time on social media is beyond me. I totally understand using it for a bit of news on the odd check in but it's so obviously unhealthy for people, it not like it needs a watershed moment or some big exposé on the negative effects. I guess YT is probably the exception in that yes, it's still full of talentless pricks, but there is also a ton of high quality, informative and helpful content out there.

 

When it comes to the PSR stuff, the whole club is in the gutter that I really don't see why people were getting in to such a frenzy about it before any concrete news. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best is my mantra. Hopefully it will give us an injection of positivity and some impetuous to do something good with the rest of the season.

[filbertway]

I use twitter for boxing and football news really. As long as I avoid the comments then I'm golden, if I do accidentally stumble on the comments I just remember that everything has to be black and white and people say things they wouldn't otherwise say.

 

As long as I keep tiktok off my phone and the ridiculous gormless scrolling for hours I'm fine. The problem is if a mate sends a funny video, I watch that and before I know it, I've wasted 2 hours of my life and a good portion of my few remaining brain cells.

 

If you get sucked into reading comments and posts that are written to annoy you and get you to engage and it's affecting your mental health, then you really need to get off that stuff. 

[Raj]

1 hour ago, Daggers said:

But aside from that, is there anything @Raj does that doesn't annoy you?

MODS🤬

[Raj]

1 hour ago, AKCJ said:

As long as there are gullible people, there will be other people trying to fool them.

Some think Daka will STILL be a success🙄😁

Edited 14 January 2025 by Raj

[Footballwipe]

5 hours ago, pkonline said:

 

Social media, fan channels and news agencies are all about clickbait. Back to back 24/7 negative stories. I’m sure some fans on here would have had sleepless nights the past few days, having digested all the alarmist stuff online. The recent PSR stuff crystallised the downside of social media, online, videos, fan channels etc Up until today we’ve seen scare stories, rumours, and often just made up nonsense.

 

I'm sorry, but if anyone has had this genuine reaction to the PSR stuff then they really, really need more hobbies, or to focus more on their actual, real, day to day life.

 

Over the last week work for me has been manic, I've barely had time to digest PSR-related stuff and have dipped in and out of the thread on here, reading about 5-6 posts to get a flavour. Today the news came through that it was all okay.

 

You know, as someone who used to be wrapped up in every minute movement this club made, that's all that I needed. A check in, a quick "eh it might happen but I can't control it" and then a look this morning.

 

There's more to just watching people make £££ online. There's the desire to be seen as powerful, influential within the club you support. Look at all the accounts of individuals, or those running LCFC-related accounts with large followings. There's a pressure to stay relevant. With that comes overly-emotional investment which is admirable fanaticism at best, weird lonely behaviour at worst.

 

Remember this. The players, management and board of this club do not care about you. Your loyalty and investment in this club does not matter to them. By all means enjoy following the club but I'd encourage anyone to do all they can to let go of the things they absolutely cannot control, especially off-the-pitch stuff.

[Corky]

3 hours ago, Matt said:

Football isn’t supposed to be a TV drama.

 

Unfortunately at the top level it’s become a TV drama and that’s why amongst other issues people are starting to resent it.

 

The game has become too serious but understandably so given the ludicrous levels of money involved. Everyone is conspired against, everyone hates us, it isn't fair etc.

 

People get too worked up about it. I understand it with your own club but there are those who obsess over what rival/ other clubs are doing, too. It must be exhausting. 

 

I know we are on here a lot so probably some hypocrisy involved but I like to think we have a laugh as well. I see some ranting in comments on Talksport YouTube videos and wonder what happened.

 

 

[Guest RYM]

I used to love Twitter it was so good for my previous jobs, you could use it as a live CV as to what you were doing on match days and in between. It was so, so good from a supporter service point of view too. That said you were open to attack from fans and colleagues who hated the attention you got. I had so much abuse and loads of bollockings for answering abusers back etc but it was all good fun. I deleted my account soon after I left though as it was just a cess pit of noise and aggression.

 

I only use FB and IG for my business now but if I could I would do away with it all. It just messes with your head and anxiety / depression. I've even applied to come off here about 3 times as it's all time consuming nonsense over a game which is totally beyond our control but affects our emotions daily if we let it.

 

I try and have days when I don't use my phone for social stuff but we have trained our brains in such a way that we can feel like we are missing out and you get trapped in some pavlovian cycle around notifications and interactions. 

 

Below is one of my favourite interactions. At the time of the tweet Bees were 2-0 down to Millwall. They scored 3 late goals to win and the tweets were deleted. I also had nothing to do with the kits haha.