As social media grows more and more prevalent, its effects on sports have become more apparent. It’s now easier than ever to grab your phone and see highlight after highlight of the latest hockey or football game. All you have to do is start scrolling on TikTok or Instagram to see your favorite players make the biggest plays of their lives or make the worst play of their career that you know will haunt them forever.
“Criticism sticks with a person much longer than compliments do. It’s hard to forget a bad play when everyone is criticizing you,” said junior Grace VanFossen. The spread of these haunting plays is an even more serious issue at the high school level. Once a clip of someone making a bad play in a game spreads to the entire school, the athlete can feel hopeless.
“Social media highlights a lot of the negatives of high school sports, people will hide behind their screens, and you’ll have 57-year-olds yelling at 15-year olds because they missed one shot,” said Assistant Track Coach Mr. Joseph Witek. In the heat of the moment, people can get pretty upset about one mistake, yet just as quickly as they become outraged, they have already forgotten who messed up or what the mistake was. When clips of athletes messing up are uploaded to social media, the kid who missed the net or let in the goal is put on blast. Everyone knows exactly what they did and who they are. But social media does not only consist of dragging athletes down when they screw up.
“I think social media is a great way to find out when games are happening,” said junior Chloe Weaver. “It’s always super clear what the theme is for the game.” The Viator Barstool account is one of the best examples of bringing attention to games. Compared to the barstool accounts for professional and college teams, Viator always clarifies when a game is happening, where it’s happening, and what you should wear.