Around the turn of the decade, social media giant Orkut began to steadily lose followers. The process had already been in motion in many other countries, and finally, it had started to lose followers from its trusted following in India and Brazil as well. Facebook's ascent was as steep as it was unprecedented – a few years later, it would be almost unheard of for an average person not to have a Facebook account.
Jokes, sarcastic comments, witty quips and insults have existed since as long as we care to remember. They used to reach us in the form of forwarded messages and forwarded emails – means of communication that while being effective, were still heavily personalised in nature.
With the emergence of the present decade, however, Twitter and Facebook have jointly contributed towards giving 'memes' a platform for their visual creation and propagation, setting in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to research findings in 2016 that more than 50 percent of American adults rely on Facebook as their primary source of news.
We football fans see these 'trolls’ almost on a daily basis. That is how most of us come to know about that dreadful open goal miss by a player, before even watching the highlights. That is how we come to know that it is statistically more likely for a nine-year-old dog in Japan to save a shot on target than it is for Claudio Bravo at Manchester City.
Trolls have completely altered the way football is experienced. We are being constantly exposed to a multitude of different opinions, often before we have even had a chance to develop our own unique view.
While there is a healthy amount of laughter involved, there is a strong case to argue that trolling has done more harm to the overall football viewing experience than good. Among others, Arsene Wenger recently hit out at social media, suggesting that personal dissentious views were getting a platform to come together and influence the rest of the fanbase.
We examine 5 ways in which trolling is ruining the football experience:
#1 Biased information and statistics
Mark Twain popularised the saying, “There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” The use of statistics to polarise a fanbase is shockingly common. “Moyes and Mourinho have the same number of points after X matches in charge of United,” choosing to conveniently forget that the former inherited a title winning squad and the latter a Europa league squad.
“Rodgers and Klopp have the same number of points after X matches,” conveniently forgetting that Rodgers had a stellar second season before things went astray.
Not just misleading information, completely false information may circulate through these trolls as well – particularly transfer rumours. When the real targets arrive, therefore, fans naturally feel disillusioned and disenchanted given the pedigree of the names they picked up from these unreliable sources. Injuries, internal disputes, business takeovers... all sorts of fabricated news gets propagated in this manner.
#2 Cyberbullying: No time for newcomers to prove themselves
As part of the younger generation, it is generally the younger football players who tend to be more active on social media – to their own detrimental effect. A single poor touch is condemned, a poor pass is lambasted and for a poor performance, well, the player is nothing short of vilified.
Young players and new signings inevitably need time to come to terms with their surroundings. With all the cyber bullying going on, it has become a thankless task to fight through the bad times and keep faith – and not every player manages to do that.
#3 Dearth of real journalism
If you were to open an article from the Guardian online, you would see a message similar to the following:
“We have a favour to ask you. More people are reading the Guardian than ever, but fewer are paying for it...”
“For less than the price of a coffee a week, you could help secure the Guardian's future. Support our journalism for...”
Not just Guardian – outlets like the Times and the Telegraph have introduced paywalls to restrict their free online viewership. With social media turning into the primary source of news, the noble profession of journalism is under severe threat. In the cyber world, only the number of clicks matter, and search for authenticity and validity of news is being forgotten. We need our journalists back – we need our journalism back – as soon as we can.
#4 Attack on personal lives
How many children does Raheem Sterling have?
Forget for an instant that whatever number it is, us fans have nothing to do with it and no reason whatsoever to be interested in it. Forget for an instant how Sterling and his family might be feeling when varying rumours circulate over the internet. What is the answer to the above question? Well, to those of you who have been following social media trolls too much, the answer might be shocking – just one.
Outside the football pitch, when the trolls begin to target personal lives, that too based on unconfirmed and questionable news sources, the matter begins to escalate beyond the world of football – such personal heckling is nothing short of cyber crime. Even Irina Shayk was the target of heavy social media trolling when she broke up with Cristiano Ronaldo. Such poisonous attacks on personal lives have to stop.
#5 Missing the moment
One of the most frustrating incidents as a football fan is when you are watching a match on TV and either team scores a goal just when you are away for a restroom break. How many ever replays you watch, it is not quite the same; we all hate missing the moment. Imagine if you simply had to go to the loo when the 1999 Champions League final (Machester United vs Bayern Munich) was approaching injury time!
But now it seems it is even more important to let others know what you are experiencing; live Instafeeds, quickfire tweets, thinking up the next troll before anyone else on the internet – amidst all this, the sheer passion of the moment a goal is scored or a goalline clearance made is lost. We have one eye on our smartphones and one eye on the field; a quick glance up to make sure we missed nothing, and then back to the addictive social media world.
Embrace all the fun and laughter it provides – but at the same time, let's join hands to ensure that trolling and social media do not spoil the inherent joy of the football experience.
