veganfan21 wrote:
Good dolphin, DT and others have made good points about the public displays of grief, many of which seem exaggerated and more of the same tired celebrity worship. I don't think they're mocking a guy like Nas' feelings, someone who grew up with an attachment to Kobe and followed his career closely.
I agree that things may have been different had Kobe had the same success in OKC instead of LA. At the same time Durant and Westbrook are quite popular nationally despite playing most of their careers in OKC, so maybe it wouldn't have been too much different. These guys are not only popular because of the city in which they play, but because of shoe deals, commercials, marketing campaigns, and the general popularity of the NBA and its compatibility with social media viral video sharing and whatnot. Much easier for a 360 dunk to go viral than it is a long bomb from Mahomes to Hill. So media opportunities and the internet enable players to transcend the limited commerical opportunities of a smaller city.
That being said, I guess the past few days of attention on the Kobe crash do indeed say something about Kobe but maybe more about our culture. This is the new way people mourn high profile celebrities and it's not going to change. Everyone has a Twitter or IG account. Sharing on those platforms is going to fuel more sharing and commenting and it's all gonna be quite vapid in the aggregate. But then i do think it's on the consumer of these posts more so than the authors of all the dumb posts when it comes to feeling annoyed. There's nothing compelling one to surf Twitter or whatnot - if you're annoyed by what you see, then follow different people. One of the things I can't wrap my mind around most times is the general board criticism of Twitter. This is often seen in threads about some guy named Quad City Pat, random SJWs, and of course dicaro. In other words, much of the negative perception on the board of Twitter is because guys are following some of the dumbest and most ignorant people who use it. When I first started using Twitter it was to follow the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Over there Twitter was materially helping to foment a revolution. It was critical to receive news reports and updates that were not government propaganda from the regimes that were under fire. So when I see all this hate about Twitter and whatnot here I'm inclined to think it's actually on your patterns of consumption and not the platform itself. And again, Twitter and other platforms are gonna be saturated with dumb takes following events like Kobe's death. And that's just something I think we have to get used to.
Its as Phil Jackson once said about Sportstalk Radio. Mental Masturbation. There are certain people on here that go looking for dumb comments then act surprised when they actually get dumb comments.
There is nothing that i'm looking to ascertain about Kobe Bryant from looking at the random twitter feeds of people that never knew Kobe. If I click on their twitter account then I must be looking for an off the wall comment. Why be aghast once I get what it is that I am obviously looking for?
_________________
The Hawk wrote:
This is going to reach a head pretty soon.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
