Ah social media, you beautiful source of controversy. You did it again this week, when Sam Thaiday – now only known as a Brisbane Bronco – used you to tell the world how disappointed he was about not receiving a phone call.
You know, to let him know he had missed out on a spot in Mal Meninga’s Kangaroos squad for the upcoming Rugby League World Cup.
I couldn’t help but wipe a sarcastic tear away from my eye as Sam poured his heart out in an Instagram post. It hit me right in the feelings, you know.
Look, whether Sam was deserving of a phone call is up for debate and you can go ahead and debate this with anyone who wants to take you on, probably somewhere on social media. It’s so easy to do, isn’t it?
Most of us do it in one way or another. And so do our sports stars, not just here in Australia but all over the world.
Gone are the days where an athlete needed a television interviewer to actually want to talk to them to get their message across. The days of having a newspaper journalist needing take an interest in your message in order to have it splashed across the pages of the next edition are also gone.
Today’s athletes have got things to say and they are bypassing the middleman to be heard. They are doing it themselves via Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or who knows what else. They don’t need the mainstream media to do their talking for them.
They have their own voice, thanks to social media.
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And you can hear them loud and clear. Even if you couldn’t give a stuff about what they’re banging on about, you can’t get away from them because, chances are, you are trying to do the same thing yourself. And you’re doing it the same way as they are, via social media.
As we all know, there isn’t a whole lot of censorship or manners or respect in the land of social media. It can get ugly, and it is very easy for things to get out of control.
That is why so many sporting bodies and clubs absolutely hate it. They can’t control it.
They can try to clean up the mess afterward, but the damage has already been done by the time they find out what has happened.
The same can be said for the sports stars themselves.
A quick tweet in the heat of the moment can easily be deleted. But as soon as you send that into the Twittersphere, it is available for anyone to see it, screenshot it, and use it elsewhere.
The author of the tweet thinks they have solved their issues by deleting it, but it will still exist. And that means they, and whoever pays them, will have to deal with it somewhere along the line.
Which brings me back to Sam’s Instagram message.
NRL Photos/Grant Trouville
There will no doubt be people out there who think this should have been kept out of the public domain. They may have a point, but that isn’t how things are done these days. Transparency is one of the big buzzwords today and the players know that they will have an audience and get a reaction if they go public with their grievances.
When it comes to Thaiday, you could argue that he thought “Stuff it, what are they going to do to me?” and let rip. Social media, and thereafter, the mainstream media have done the rest.
Pretty easy way to get your point across to a lot of people, isn’t it?
Just look at what the President of the US has done using Twitter. We’re just a few smart-arse tweets away from nuclear war because of the power of ‘The Donald’ and his social media skills.
I really wish I was joking there.
For better or worse, social media is here to stay and we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sports stars using it to vent, celebrate, condemn, congratulate, protest and support all kinds of issues.
They have an audience, and funnily enough, we want to listen.
In the same way more of us are tuning in to comedians analysing politics so that we understand what is really going on, we are more than happy to read or listen when an athlete ventures outside the safe, cliché zone, full of “it was a team effort” and “we just have to take it one game at a time” statements that mean nothing.
When they have something else to say, we can’t wait to hear it. And you get the feeling there’s plenty more to come.
So quick, open up your phones. Otherwise, you’ll miss out. And we can’t have that, can we.
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