NFL Draft

Last night started one of the most publicized events in sports, the NFL Draft.  The draft attracts so many viewers and has very high ratings especially this year with the field of players that were gonna be drafted.  It lets the fans look ahead to the upcoming season and wonder if they can pick up pieces that will make their team the favorite to win the Vince Lombardi trophy.  As well, it renews all the arguments between friends about who will be better and which draft pick will be a bust or another Tom Brady that went unnoticed.

Social media sites also go into detail about the draft, find out breaking news on trades and other things that we would not know when watching it on TV.  At times, being on Twitter is more beneficial than watching something on TV.  This is because the NFL analysts and NFL writers will post on social medias like Twitter the first time they receive breaking news before telling other people.  The whole draft as well can be pretty much followed on these sites because someone will always posting about the most recent pick and have analysis regarding the picks. 

There are also so many arguments that stem from social medias because someone posts something about their team and then say something dumb about another team and then there is a heated debate on the topic.  This happened on my floor so I saw it first hand that it can be very informative but then it can cause problems that do not need to happen.  But all in all it is an exciting time and time to be with friends.

Jersey Shore

Right before writing this blog, my friends and I were just talking about social media and things that people are doing because they are are influenced by it.  The idea that hit us and realized that it really has a huge impact is Jersey Shore.  The affects it has on kids our age, younger and older are just tremendous.  When I would go onto Facebook and Twitter right before the show would come on, all that there would be would statuses about how there is a new episode about to be on and how many people get together and have Jersey Shore get togethers.  They would have viewing parties for the show which is a little over the top I would have to say.  Like I normally do not even have get togethers for sporting events which is normally what people do.  Not have a one hour so called "party" at 10 on a Thursday. However, that is the impact that the show has on people and if you have a social media that you use, it is impossible to not know that there is am episode that is going to be on or already was shown.  You would think that Derek Jeter just retired with the amount of posts about it.

The problem with the show is that it causes people on social sites to start talking like some of the people on the show, put up pix of them doing dumb stuff and labeling some of them after them.  The show had a big impact and still does but not as heavily as the first couple seasons that it was out.  It literally took over every media site and there were articles written about them on other news sites, not just social media sites.  It took the media world by the throat and had everyone crazy about it.  It was a pretty cool thing to witness. 

People Need to Watch What They Say

Recently, most of us have heard Ozzie Guillens comments about who his most inspirational person was and he then responded with the answer of the year, "I love Fidel Castro." Then all of the media and the social media went crazy and people were tweeting like crazy about it.  Next the 5 game suspension was handed out, the protest outside was created, then all the heated debates on why he said it went on, and finally the live speech he made to the public. This was a very interesting time because everyone was wondering why he said this and why could he not think of someone else to say instead of him.

That question interested everyone and everyone on social media in which everyone thought they knew the answer. However, due to all the tweets that were being sent out between the analysts and experts in baseball. They were really able to spread the word about what he said and let the public know about it. Without being on Twitter, I personally would not have known about his remarks on Castro and how he respects him and etc. Then thanks to social media and the wildfire it starts, it led to him pretty much getting suspended. The reason for this is that if you think about it, if no one tweeted about it and spread it around, then it would not have been a big deal and he would have never been in this position.  However, I personally feel that he could have easily thought of someone else to say that is an inspiration and not have to worry about explaining himself or offending anyone.  It was just really dumb on his part and he received the consequences.

Opening Day

As most of us know, this week is opening week for Major League Baseball.  It is an exciting week because we can finally see our favorite players get back into action as well as it is a sign that summer is near with all the fun moments, nice weather, and no school.  As well, social media really plays an important role in promoting it.

Normally social media does not pay any attention to baseball and is always talking about basketball or football, even in the off season like this year with football.  However, when opening day approaches, baseball is all that can be seen and read.  Yankees, Red Sox mainly, and those few poor Mets fans who just hope they will not come in last place in the division this year.  These are the main people that I see writing on social media and there is no talk about other sports for once.  It is just good old baseball being talked about and social media plays a big part of others knowing that it is opening week.  Without it, many people would not know but since everyone is talking about it, many more people are paying attention to it.  I enjoy that more people are talking about it because it is my favorite sport and I feel at times it can be overshadowed by other sports.  It is just exciting to see all the excitement and hype this week for the start of it and the promoting that social media brings.

Wrong Information

This past week while on vacation there was a man who barricaded himself in his house with a rifle.  The town cops were there, cops from other towns were there, the army, and the SWAT were there.  Reason for all of this was because they did not exactly who was in the house.  If it was just him or if he had taken anyone hostage in the house with him.  In the end, it was only himself and he ended up killing himself with a rifle but the cops were there for about 3 hours after that because they were not sure what exactly was going on until they went into the house and saw him on the ground dead.

Reason for sharing this you, it is because of what social media was saying about it.  I have realized that social media can share the correct info with people but as well, once someone says something that is incorrect it spreads like wild fire.  Then before I know it, there is like 10 different stories of what happened.  For example, during this incident last week, my friend lives across the street from the house and saw exactly what was going on and was texting me with the details on what was going on and what happened.  Then my other friend was texting me and said, "I was reading on Facebook and it said that the guy killed his daughter, his ex-wife, and then went to his girlfriends house and killed her and then himself".  That is almost 100% incorrect and it came from social media of course.  I just laughed because once someone posts something on social media it changes it story constantly until its almost completely wrong.  It is just the way it works and we have to realize that and not completely believe what is wrote by several people because then that means that it is most likely a hot story in the town.  As well, an incorrect one like in my case.

Facebook Photos

With the recent surprise of warm, spring like weather in early March. Everyone is pulling out all of their summer cloths because 65 feels like 85 after coming out of winter and its cold weather. On social media sites, especially on Facebook, people are constantly posting about it but one aspect that stuck out to me is the posting of pictures of themselves in their summer cloths. It has mainly been all girls that are doing it but there are probably guys who do it as well. They are showing off their shorts, tank tops, dresses, and etc. With the pictures, they put a title on top of their photos like: Spring fevers, summer weather, love this weather, cute new shirt, and so on. I find it kind of funny, because during the winter, girls did not put up this many pictures of themselves as they are now. Within the past couple days; I have probably seen as many pictures of girls in the past two days as I did in about a month or so in the winter. It is as though they feel they are obligated to tell everyone that they have their summer cloths on and show everyone that the weather is nice even though we all know that it is.

I may seem as though I am annoyed or are talking down on them, but I am not trying to come across as being mean. I have just kept noticing this trend of how girls like to show off the clothes they wear in the spring to tell everyone it is warm out. While in the winter there is half as many of these pix. I found it to be kind of comical and when the rest of the guys on my floor said that they noticed the same thing, I felt that I needed to blog on the topic to see if others agree and have noticed the same thing.

March Madness

For those who do not know, one of the greatest weeks of the year and one of the greatest months of the year is here again.  This week is Championship Week for college basketball and then the week after starts March Madness, which is the Division 1 basketball tournament to determine the National Champion.  Reason for bringing up March Madness is that it may be one of the most publicized tournaments of the year from a social media perspective.  All social media sites go absolutely crazy and there are constantly updates on all the games whenever a huge upset happens or when important games are on.  Whatever the circumstance, social media sites are always updated with the most current scores, upcoming games, and analysis of games already played.  We can pretty much not watch the games live because we can see everything we need on these sites.

My friend next door is a prime example of this topic.  He watches every game, will post on anything exciting that happens, or complain about anything that happened during the course of the game that will keep us updated on little details we may not have known if we saw highlights of the game.  He is one of many who do this and it helps support the reason for social media and its significance during March Madness.  Without any of these media sources, we would have to actually sit down and watch the game or watch the highlights on TV which can be an inconvenience for many since we are heavily on our computers all the time.

Celebrity Publicity

In recent years, the amount of information that we know about professional athletes, movie stars, singers, and etc. is incredible.  When you actually pause and think about how much we know about our favorite celebrities, we will realize that we know pretty much everything.  From the new car they just bought, if they are going to have another child in the family, what they are eating, and pretty much everything else about their lives.  Knowing all this is in thanks to the social media sources that we have access to now-a-days.  Not so much with Facebook, or the news, but in particular to Twitter.  Twitter is the hot spot for accessing information and breaking news on your favorite celebrity and what they are doing because they tweet about almost everything in their lives, and Twitter is open for the public to see all of it as well. 
 
Now lets go back in time; remember when we were just kids and we barely knew anything about celebrities except for what was said on TV or if we saw it in person?  When we had no access to all the social media that surrounds us and the use of the Internet with all the celebrity websites that have a lot of "dirt" on them.  That was back in the days when we were not as involved in people lives and had our own privacy compared to today.  I am not saying it is a bad thing that we are connected to celebrities in more ways than we ever were, or because of the social media access that we have.  I just find it interesting how we are essentially a part of these celebrities' lives in a way that we never could have experienced a decade ago.  It just goes to show us how far technlogy has advanced and how social media can make us feel were part of something or someone when we really are not a part of it. 

Sacrificing Social Media

This past Wednesday, if you did not know was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the 40 days of Lent.  During Lent, many people give up something and I always go on Facebook that day to see how many people say that they are going to give up Facebook and all other social medias.  I respect them if they are able to give them up and not go on them.  Realistically though, why are people so addicted to them that they have to give them up?  They should not be because when you think about it, why are we addicted to other peoples lives and what they are doing?  It does not make sense but that is the way our society is; we love social media so much that we need to give it up for 40 days to try to prove to ourselves that we can mange without it even know most people cannot actually go through with the sacrifice they originally made.  When you think back on the days before social media, we never knew what people were doing at the time.  We had to call them and see if they were not busy and if they wanted to do something with us.  We were perfectly fine back then with that kind of communication and we were fine when we were younger without the access to all the social media.  Therefore, giving up social media should not be as hard as some make it out to be.

Social Media Fire

Through the years, social media has really caught fire and now people are hooked to it. Many people go on it multiple times a day, are on it all day long, or a few rare people go on it once a day or not even once in a day. Many feel that they need to be in the loop of people and what they are doing because we like to know what everyone is doing or what has happened. For instance, once something happens in the world like the death of Whitney Houston, within an hour everyone knows about it because everyone is attached to social media and post about everything. If we may not have heard something important that has happened in the world, we just go on a social media site and there will be something being posted on it to keep us updated. Without social media, a lot of information would not be passed along as fast without it and we would actually have to watch the news or read a newspaper more often than we do.