Stop everything you’re doing and read this

hughy · Sep 14, 2021

There are 6 or 7* posters on here who I absolutely cannot tolerate in regards to their negativity. I know ignoring them is a simple solution, but it's tedious then having to go through threads where every second post looks like someone is talking to themselves.

It definitely wasn't as bad here last time we went through a low spell (2012-14), and it has definitely affected how often I use Spurs Chat.

*I say 6 or 7, in reality it's probably closer to 15 or 20.

Stamford · Sep 14, 2021

Its not limited to twitter its on here too. This place is not even close to an actual representation of what happens at the ground or before.

easley91 · Sep 14, 2021

Tucker said:
I don’t think this is a phenomenon limited to football fans, Twitter in general is just a void into which people shout these days. The louder and more extreme things they say, the more reaction they get. So it’s become a competition about who can say the most over the top thing.

People do it on here all the time now, too.

I would add to this that there is an apparent need to be on one side or another. Whether that be Messi v Ronaldo, WWE v AEW, Xbox v PS, PC v console, Apple v Android etc. The "fanboy" types are incredibly annoying. You have to agree with them or else you're nothing and your opinion doesn't matter one bit.

Dougal · Sep 14, 2021

Stamford said:
Its not limited to twitter its on here too. This place is not even close to an actual representation of what happens at the ground or before.

It’s why I posted it here in a kind of ‘Is this you? Give yourself a slap’ way.

easley91 · Sep 14, 2021

It isn't solely on twitter either as others have mentioned. Any sense of disagreement to an opinion or going against the grain and some will be more than happy to jump on you. For a while now the world has been embracing the negativity over the positivity.

allatsea · Sep 14, 2021

cockerel downunder said:
Great read! Certainly a few of them on here, the relentless pessimism and negativity really grind me down.

Agree so much. It has got that I have been avoiding Spurs Chat which is very sad.

easley91 · Sep 14, 2021

Okay so I have just read it in it entirety. Could swap it for Spurs and still be spot on. There is a section of "fans" from every club like that on social media, twitter especially.

Cornpattbuck · Sep 14, 2021

Dougal said:
Liverpool chat? In Spurs Chat!?! It actually relates to many many fans and perfectly puts into words a problem I, and seemingly many others, have when discussing the modern game. Whole conversations descend into drivel due to the appearance of the sort of fan mentioned here. I’ll shut up now and let this gentleman do the talking.

The Cold World of the Extremely Online Liverpool Fan

The odd existence of the digital football supporter who doesn’t care about football

dean-magazine.ghost.io

Kind of bizarre how many of these moments (and Twitter comments) are pretty much identical to a portion of users on here and certainly Spurs' social media followers.

One might almost suspect that there's an organisation(s) that gets paid by clubs to spam/troll their opposition and stir up negativity among supporters... or is that too "tin hat"?! ?

Really well written blog by the way. Thanks for sharing.

Danny1 · Sep 14, 2021

Tucker said:
I don’t think this is a phenomenon limited to football fans, Twitter in general is just a void into which people shout these days. The louder and more extreme things they say, the more reaction they get. So it’s become a competition about who can say the most over the top thing.

People do it on here all the time now, too.

NO THEY DONT!!

?

You are spot on Tucker, I detest the term but it becomes an echo chamber, especially the match day threads!

Geyzer Soze · Sep 14, 2021

allatsea said:
Agree so much. It has got that I have been avoiding Spurs Chat which is very sad.

You're not alone ?

easley91 · Sep 14, 2021

I know it isn't limited to twitter per say, but "Football Twitter" just needs to die already.

brendanb50 · Sep 14, 2021

Seem to be a lot of discussions in and around SC at the moment which seem to chime nicely with this article.

What's the remedy though? Do people just need to stop digesting content on platforms like twitter? Stop reacting to it? Spend less time engaged by it?

I do use twitter but have to say less and less. I've also been on here for a long time now and whilst i post less than i did many moons ago, i don't think my posts have become increasingly knee-jerk or troll-like but perhaps i'm too much of a twat to realise.

Perhaps it's the amount of time people spend on the more toxic areas of football discussion? If you don't get your head out of twitter from time to time, you're going to absorb a bit of that negativity riling you up and gradually become a part of some discussions/arguments you'd really not want to if you were to regain some perspective. Same could be said for SC but all in all i'd still have faith that some sense would prevail here, thanks to the majority of decent posters here.

For me that's the thing that's lacking most of all; perspective, and real-life perspective at that. Perhaps it's no coincidence that football twitters most toxic trolls tend to be younger and/or from other parts of the world?

We all lacked a bit of wisdom at a younger age and the game has changed so much in recent times, how the younger generation of fans (generalising massively here) interact with their club is very different to what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Additionally, if you're a fan from another country, you may not have ever actually seen your team play. So where do you 'follow' them so to speak? How do you engage in fandom without being physically at the stadium or amongst other fans? This for me is where the online experience lacks perspective and is potentially amplified by the sheer volume of foreign fans who follow the premier league or the massive European clubs.

Trying to steer away slightly from the anti-youth, anti-foreigner hot take i've just made - Any fan consuming content about their club, primarily online, with limited first-hand perspective, has the potential to become a very limited, very knee-jerk fan.

PLTuck · Sep 14, 2021

brendanb50 said:
Seem to be a lot of discussions in and around SC at the moment which seem to chime nicely with this article.

What's the remedy though? Do people just need to stop digesting content on platforms like twitter? Stop reacting to it? Spend less time engaged by it?

I do use twitter but have to say less and less. I've also been on here for a long time now and whilst i post less than i did many moons ago, i don't think my posts have become increasingly knee-jerk or troll-like but perhaps i'm too much of a twat to realise.

Perhaps it's the amount of time people spend on the more toxic areas of football discussion? If you don't get your head out of twitter from time to time, you're going to absorb a bit of that negativity riling you up and gradually become a part of some discussions/arguments you'd really not want to if you were to regain some perspective. Same could be said for SC but all in all i'd still have faith that some sense would prevail here, thanks to the majority of decent posters here.

For me that's the thing that's lacking most of all; perspective, and real-life perspective at that. Perhaps it's no coincidence that football twitters most toxic trolls tend to be younger and/or from other parts of the world?

We all lacked a bit of wisdom at a younger age and the game has changed so much in recent times, how the younger generation of fans (generalising massively here) interact with their club is very different to what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Additionally, if you're a fan from another country, you may not have ever actually seen your team play. So where do you 'follow' them so to speak? How do you engage in fandom without being physically at the stadium or amongst other fans? This for me is where the online experience lacks perspective and is potentially amplified by the sheer volume of foreign fans who follow the premier league or the massive European clubs.

Trying to steer away slightly from the anti-youth, anti-foreigner hot take i've just made - Any fan consuming content about their club, primarily online, with limited first-hand perspective, has the potential to become a very limited, very knee-jerk fan.

I guess the shortest answer re social media is just to try and get people to stop caring so fuucking much about it. Everyone knows it's a cesspool of negativity, yet the vast majority still go on it hourly in every waking hour.

As mentioned above, it's self abuse. People need to have a bit more fucking respect for themselves.

Bobbins · Sep 14, 2021

Social media has given everyone who wants to act like a ****, the ability to anonymously act like a ****.

It's in football, politics, art - you name almost any sphere of cultural interest and there will be ****s online complaining about it.

I think with football one thing he's missing from that article is that a lot of the time, it's young foreign fans who do the most complaining. The amount of African, Indian and Middle Eastern accounts which follow the big clubs is crazy (especially Chelsea, with their history of racism). I saw a "Chelsea Stan" kid from Uganda on Twitter the other day complaining that they hadn't got rid of Werner - I went on his profile to read his other tweets and most of what he said when it wasn't football was going on pages about American politics and saying he agreed with abortion being banned etc. Don't know why I bothered - morbid fascination I suppose.

****s are worldwide. We've got loads of them ourselves right here, but unfortunately we get to enjoy the input from the whole global **** population thanks to modern technology.

easley91 · Sep 14, 2021

PLTuck said:
I guess the shortest answer re social media is just to try and get people to stop caring so fuucking much about it. Everyone knows it's a cesspool of negativity, yet the vast majority still go on it hourly in every waking hour.

As mentioned above, it's self abuse. People need to have a bit more fucking respect for themselves.

Thing is I use twitter for other things as well as for football, so it's hard to come off it although I do give myself the odd break from time to time. If you know who to follow, what to ignore and remember that most of it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt then you're good. I just the think these kinds of "fans" are outnumbering the other folk and so most replies on a post from an official club account are from these types of people. Twitter is no longer a place to have a reasonable discussion on any topic really, and that isn't limited to football.

spursfan77 · Sep 14, 2021

cockerel downunder said:
Great read! Certainly a few of them on here, the relentless pessimism and negativity really grind me down.

See the Nuno thread since the palace defeat (although my last post in there is complaining about the transfer window ?) where I have been trying to say things aren’t that bad at all but you’d think we were bottom of the league reading it.

spursfan77 · Sep 14, 2021

Cornpattbuck said:
Kind of bizarre how many of these moments (and Twitter comments) are pretty much identical to a portion of users on here and certainly Spurs' social media followers.

One might almost suspect that there's an organisation(s) that gets paid by clubs to spam/troll their opposition and stir up negativity among supporters... or is that too "tin hat"?! ?

Really well written blog by the way. Thanks for sharing.

I have said for a while that there are a set of fans who are more interested in what goes on off the pitch than on it and that article articulates it better than I ever could. They are more interested in transfers, club finances, what each payer is paid etc. I like the financial side (Swiss Ramble for example is a great follow) but I am most interested in what what happens during the games. I guess it depends how much you go to games. Take Kane for example, he was always going to get a positive reaction for staying but there were lots on social media and here saying he will be booed when the match going fan is a lot more pragmatic about things I find.

Frozen_Waffles · Sep 14, 2021

Good article.

It's pretty much the same on here and has been for a while. Just go through any thread and you will find the usual levy/enic quotes. If anyone says anything reasonable, your a 'bsodl'. It is the minority though.

It's instant gratification and emotion without rational thought. You are reading the same shit about Nuno and even Oliver Skipp (who has been excellent, is still only 20 and is one of our own.)

I must admit I ignore it now, not a negative response, not a disagree or anything. I think they clearly are not worth my time.

Dare I say it, I enjoyed the first half and up until the penalty at palace. Not the attacking play (which was non existent), but I got a feeling that the majority of the players showed passion and cared. I wouldn't put up with it every week, but it's much better than watching fucks who don't care.

I also understand all the shit that went before it and players missing etc. I also understand that it was Nunos 4th pl game. But you still get the usual 'nuno out' or 'mourhino 2.0' bollocks.

After the transfer window it was a little bit embarrassing as well, people losing their shit.

But for me I just ignore it now, people are always going to be like that, no point getting wound up by an idiot.

SpursSince1980 · Sep 14, 2021

Mandy Dingle said:
I remember watching a YouTube video where some guy released two videos, one of the top ten things he liked that year and another with the top ten things he hated to see what would happen. No surprise to anyone the latter gained almost 5x the views as the former. People are drawn to negativity and shout the loudest when in that mindset, the trouble is it drowns out any reasonable, middle-ground discussion so it seems like everyone is either toxically negative or overly positive, bordering on delusion.

I actually doubt the people posting the hatred genuinely feel that way, as others have said it's just the easiest way for people to get impressions and they're encouraged to keep repeating that cycle as where they once had zero likes on a tweet they get 5, 10, 100, 1000, constantly dripping addictive dopamine by posting increasingly extreme takes. The trouble is it's so easy to delude yourself into believing something that is verifiably untrue if you just get enough people around you parroting the rubbish you initially posted.

No idea what the solution is, if there even is one. Social media obviously exacerbates the situation but as Humans we've been this way since the birth of civilization and beyond so I'm not really sure what type of intervention there could be that wouldn't be viewed as draconian by people.

Well, you are pondering some rather existential societal issues, with regards to the sweeping turn toward negativity. Especially online. There are many factors. But the biggest, is the most obvious: many parts of the world have been submerged in an age of prolific and profound uncertainty and fear for nearly 2 years. Following on the heels of that, is a recent era of growing populism, nationalism and tribalism. “We vs Them”. And the anonymity of the web is a perfect fertile farm for growing and harvesting discontent.

Like you, my friend… I wish there was a way to ‘fix’ or ‘heal’ this problem, that’s now a festering wound. There are a set of scientific neurological and sociological studies that would suggest there are some things that are what they are, as brains are hardwired in a particular way. Some will always have a percentage of ego and intellect that is an ‘open mindset’, willing to listen, learn, and shift perception. Some, less so. It has always been this way. Just that in some eras (especially when there is restlessness and misfortune, exacerbated by tough macro sized problems), that make it feel impossible to find an olive branch in a forest being eaten alive by a raging fire.

Football is the ultimate form of tribalism… and most importantly, escape. So, if your life outside of fandom is already riddled with everything from inequity and injustice to stress and sorrow, sports fandom can be a salve. Until it’s not. Then, all of those underlying emotions come flooding out, inappropriately aimed at other ‘fans’ or ‘your team’ or ‘your players’, when something… anything goes wrong. It’s in our nature, sadly.

southlondonyiddo · Sep 14, 2021

spursfan77 said:
See the Nuno thread since the palace defeat (although my last post in there is complaining about the transfer window ?) where I have been trying to say things aren’t that bad at all but you’d think we were bottom of the league reading it.

Give it time!

Blimey has anyone actually read all of that. Well done if you did ???

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