Athletes and Social Media: A Lethal Cocktail

We Savages love sports. Always have. Mix fierce physical competition with amazing genuine drama...what's not to love? By extension, we develop our own fan relationships with the athletes involved in these glorious games. We grew up on Jordan, Griffey, Montana, Gretzky, Elway, Ripken, and a whole slew of others...hell, even Tyson wandered in there from time to time. We knew they all probably had their demons (ok, some more than others), but we didn't care. We didn't get to (or have to) see that side of them. We'd watch the games and occasionally watch a pregame interview where they said all the right things. For the most part, all we saw was a number on the back of an idealized athlete. I don't even think we wanted any more than that. Ignorance was bliss. We knew they made a lot of money and drove fancy cars and bought big houses...but there was a part of us that thought maybe, just maybe, we could relate to these people on some level. Then...the relentless world of overexposure arrived.