#Hittingupthehashtags

Maddie Kinnaman, Staff Writer

In our technologically-savvy generation it is hard to find many people who haven’t used social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. A large portion of social media users are celebrities; in particular, professional athletes. They receive thousands of favorites and retweets, but are they changing the way we view and interact with professional athletes?

Social media is bridging the gap between the athletic elite and the ordinary citizen. In the  pre-social media world of the ‘90s, the latest and greatest athletic stars were Michael Jordan and Deion Sanders. Jordan’s excellence in basketball was what caught the world’s attention, not his latests posts on Twitter. Sanders gained fame for his impressive career in both professional baseball and football, especially for his flamboyant touchdown dances. The additional fame these players received were in the form of mainstream media, such as the print media and television; there was no social media for these players to use as their platform for sharing their daily lives. Because of this, the ordinary person would watch them play on game-day, read a news article, or see them on ESPN. Beyond the realm of news outlets and the occasional tabloid magazine, athletes were confined to being seen on game days only. Because of this they were seen as allusive and larger than life figures.

However, modern day sports stars are now met with the constant pressure to share their private lives with the public, and as a result everyone knows everything about them. Athletes have found their way into many aspects of pop culture. We no longer only see our favorite athletes on game day, they are everywhere. From cameos in movies to commercials, professional athletes are now mainstream celebrities. Social media has propelled this rise to stardom.

Cristiano Ronaldo, the Spanish soccer player, leads the athlete Twitter game with over 23 million followers. The majority of Ronaldo’s tweets are professional, detailing highlights of his career and future appearances. However, not all professional athletes use social media in this way. Anthony Dixon, running back for the San Francisco 49ers, uses his social media accounts as a window for a more in-depth look into his life. Although Dixon’s following on twitter clocks in at far less than Ronaldo’s at just over 62,000 followers, we must ask the question: Do we need to know every aspect of athletes’ personal lives?

In an information-propelled society, we have a need to know the latest information as soon as it happens. With the latest Twitter, Instagram and other social media apps, people can view their favorite athletes’ accounts at all hours of the day. But why? After watching them compete in the game and watching ESPN interviews, why do we need to read their stream of tweets and status updates?

We want to see professional athletes as people like us. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook gives us an outlet where we can interact with them through a computer. It’s easy to tweet at an athlete and make your voice heard. Who wouldn’t want their favorite athlete to see what they had written about them?

Ordinary people like you and I can find our thirty seconds of fame by simply tweeting at our favorite athletes. With Jimmy Kimmel’s NBA addition of Mean Tweets, and similar news clips where athletes read what negative tweets their fans sent in even the ordinary citizen can have their tweets read on national television.

The increase of athletes’ presence on social media bridges the gap between the elite athletes of society and the ordinary people. The ability to follow athletes closely makes us feel like we know them personally. Because of this athletes are no longer ambiguous figures we only see on game days. We see them every time we log onto our Twitter and Facebook accounts, which allows people to have a greater insight into who the athlete really is.