Blake griffin
Lebron james
DeAndre Jordan
Primary materials
My primary materials are the twitter pages of professional basketball athletes. These Twitter pages are the primary materials, because they show how professional athletes interact with their fans. Twitter accounts also allow fans to witness how these athletes react to sports analysis. I will analyze the balance of the extent professional athletes allow their fans to know their thought patterns, and how they deal with the opinion of the public eye after expressing their thoughts to the world.
For the first primary source, I focused on Brandon Knight’s Twitter. Brandon Knight is a top lottery pick point guard from the University of Kentucky who plays for the Detroit Pistons. Recently, Deandre Jordan, Los Angeles’ power forward, mercilessly humiliated Knight by dunking on him and causing him to fall. Although the incident embarrassed him in front of millions of people, Knight chose to lighten the situation with humor. Later that night, Knight tweeted about the incident stating “it wasn’t in the scouting report that the Clippers threw lobs lol.” Although Knight could have viewed this situation as a setback and an excuse to lash out at his opponent, Knight turned looked at his experience as an opportunity to learn and laugh. Brandon Knight does not tweet often, hardly ever letting his fans know what he is thinking. He has a total of 1,115 tweets, which is not much compared to Lebron James. Brandon Knight also reveals his religious side through his tweets, expressing his relationship with God. One of Knight’s many tweets state “pray yall have a blessed and positive day.” Brandon knight is perceived to be well raised, humble, and ambitious man. The public eye was waiting on his response after being embarrassed, I believe
The second athlete I’m using is as a primary material is Lebron James. When you look at Lebron James twitter you can tell mostly everything he tweets, he thinks on how he would be perceived through the fans and the sports analysis. Lebron james also tweets about fashion on and off the court. So I get the impression that he uses his twitter to advertise his sneakers and clothes. When you really analyze his twitter you can see that Lebron tries to be a regular person. If you compared his twitter page to an outgoing college kid that uses their twitter consistently they would be pretty similar. Lebron seems to be aware about everything that is going on. The NCAA basketball tournament is going down right now and last week lebron tweeted “AARON CRAFT!!!!”. Aaron craft is a point guard that plays for Ohio state university. He made a game winning shot to advance the buckeyes to the next round in NCAA tournament. Being that lebron james is from Ohio I believe he tweet about that particular game to show the city he still cared. Lebron gives off the impression that he is the perfect American. He doesn’t curse because he knows he as tons of youth followers. He has a little over 8 million followers, which means he is very popular athlete amongst twitter. Lebron james tweets what he wants but at the same time he’s aware that he a professional athlete that is under a microscope.
My last primary source that I plan on using is Blake griffins. Blake griffin plays for the Los Angeles clippers. Blake’s uses his twitter for marking purposes. He manly talks about TV shows hes featured in and about how the clippers are doing. He really does a good job marketing himself. What makes him so outgoing and marketable is his funny personality. He still acts like a kid and the media eats that all up. They love people like Blake griffin. On January 18th Blake tweeted “Thank you so much for all the fans that voted for me. Feel very humbled to be apart of all star weekend again. Means a lot to me”. That tweets shows what type of person Blake griffin is and how he was raised. Overall from the research of my primary sources, I’ve came to the conclusion that athletes watch what they tweet because they know if anything is read out of context it would be a big controversy.
So What
My research is important to people that enjoy following and watch what professional athletes tweet. Followers look at these athletes’ tweets every day whether it’s to criticize, to be inspired, or just to see what’s going on in a professional athletes life. This research is directed towards Twitter users that find the life of professional athletes interesting, as well sports analysis. Followers of these talented athletes should understand that athletes are ordinary people who work hard at their sport. Although they are icons and role models to many, they’re still people like the rest of us; with that being said, athletes go through controversies and consequences for tweets that are interpreted as unacceptable. When referring to Lebron James’ Twitter, he refrains from using profanity and watches what he says in his tweets and how he says it. I’m adding how athletes protect their image by the things they tweet to my research, because athletes know that one misread tweet can jeopardize their career and how they are perceived as a professional. Therefore, athletes try to avoid putting themselves in predicaments that may result in suspension from the team or fines.
Also, I’m adding how athletes may filter what they say, keeping some of their thoughts and ideas to themselves, because they know their words are constantly being scrutinized. Athletes cannot tweet everything that comes to their mind, because of who they are, or who people expect them to be. Failing to protect their image could cost them their career. Twitter does not give athletes a full opportunity to be themselves. Usually, when you are a professional at anything, thinking before you speak is important.