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This story appears in the Dec. 14 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
I hate Twitter. There, I said it.
I hate Twitter because I fear one day it will render my job obsolete. I hate Twitter because everybody talks and nobody listens; there is little dialogue and a whole lot of monologue. (Hey, at least The Magazine has its Reply All page.) I hate Twitter because it breeds vanity, narcissism, egocentrism and every other self-serving neurosis. I hate Twitter because it reaches the masses like Facebook on steroids. I hate Facebook. And steroids.
So naturally, when my bosses at The Mag assigned me a story on how Twitter transformed our relationship with athletes this year, I nearly hurled. Because I knew that professionalism, not to mention the need to pay my mortgage, required me to try the free and fast-growing (estimates range from 15 million to 50 million total users) microblogging service. Like a legion of star athletes have done, I must enter the Twittersphere, join the Twitterati, send tweets to my tweeps.
First, I must understand exactly what Twitter is. In the summer of 2006, software developer Jack Dorsey hatched Twitter as a website that combines the tone of blogging with the immediacy and brevity of text messaging (posts, or tweets, cannot exceed 140 characters). It took only a year for Dorsey's hatchling to hit sports circles. According to twitter-athletes.com, one of several websites that track tweeting pros, the first sports star to sign up was five-time UFC champ Frank Shamrock, in August 2007. The following month, white-water kayaker Steve Fisher and golfing great Annika Sorenstam joined the fun. By the end of 2008, Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, Magic center Dwight Howard and Lance Armstrong were among the 60 or so athletes on board.
But if jocks discovered Twitter in 2007 and grew comfortable with the medium in 2008, well, they practically replaced their publicists with it in 2009. The number of athlete-users has increased 20-fold in the past year: As of Nov. 23, twitter- athletes.com listed 1,173 pros with active accounts.
The love affair makes sense to me, as someone who spends a lot of time around sports. Twitter is the ideal time suck: easy to do, easy to stop doing. And athletes -- between hanging in locker rooms, getting treatment and waiting for games -- have a lot of downtime waiting to be sucked. "When you're just sitting around, you might as well tweet," says Kings rookie forward Jon Brockman, who according to twitter-athletes.com is one of 134 NBA players now killing minutes on Twitter (30% of the league, higher than the NFL, MLB and NHL).
As for what sets Twitter apart from other mobile brain drains -- like gaming, Facebook, YouTube or eBay -- well, that's easy: ego. "Twitter is about making you feel like people admire you," says Stanford psychologist B.J. Fogg. True, pro athletes typically don't lack for admiration. But Twitter lets them quantify the love. Once you visit somebody's Twitter page and click the "Follow" button, every tweet that person posts comes straight to your computer or cell. Attracting followers on Twitter is different from the mutual act of becoming Facebook friends: Anyone can jump on the bandwagon because it doesn't require the acceptance or denial of invitations. In the groupie-laden ranks of pro sports, followers act as a virtual notch in the bedpost. Just ask Pistons rookie DaJuan Summers, who padded his numbers by betting porn star Valerie Luxe he'd beat her to the 4,000-follower mark. (He won, but it is unknown whether he collected his winnings: dinner and a massage.) Or hit up Brockman, who has more than 150,000 followers and asked if his Twitter ID was going to appear in this story. "That way I'll get more followers," said MrJonBrockman.
In the groupie-laden ranks of pro sports, Twitter followers act as a virtual notch in the bedpost.
For many athletes, moreover, Twitter addresses their deep-seated need for freedom. This too makes sense to me. As much as the pro's life seems like a fantasy, it also comes with many restrictions. Twitter, at least initially, seems liberating. "It gives you an instant unfiltered connection with fans," says skateboard icon Tony Hawk. Adds NFL agent Steve Caric: "It lets athletes shape their image instead of having it shaped for them."
Of course, such hyperconnectivity is not always a good thing. While it may feel oh, so liberating to send messages into cyberspace, without passing them through a PR rep, it also provides a false sense of security. "People feel anonymous," says Lissa Behm-Morawitz, a communications professor at the University of Missouri. "They have this sense that what they're saying won't be judged."
But using Twitter is like holding a microphone that everybody but you can hear. The Twitterscape is now littered with ill-advised (or unadvised) tweets from jocks. In March, then-Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva was scolded by coach Scott Skiles for posting during halftime. ("In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up.") In August, Heat forward Michael Beasley wound up in rehab after posting a photo of his new tattoo; in the background were what appeared to be bags of marijuana. In November, the Chiefs released running back Larry Johnson shortly after he tweeted slams on coach Todd Haley and gay slurs. "Clearly the leagues aren't comfortable with Twitter," says Kevin Blackistone, who teaches sports journalism at the University of Maryland.
This past summer, the Chargers fined cornerback Antonio Cromartie $2,500 for tweeting that "nasty" training camp food may have had something to do with the team's not winning a Super Bowl. And last March, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was docked $25,000 for tweets that criticized NBA officials.
Even media companies are grappling with Twitter issues. This past August, ESPN created a stir when reports leaked that its employees' tweets were going to be monitored. The stories were overblown -- there was never a plan to prevent us all from tweeting -- but I did get an 11-bullet-point e-mail from ESPN headquarters entitled "Social Networking Guidelines." And by guidelines, I'm pretty sure they mean "don't be stupid."
Not wanting to court trouble, I have every intention of powering down my iPhone in preparation for a Sunday tailgate party that I'm planning to attend in the middle of reporting this story; tweeting under the influence is definitely a rule breaker. Problem is, being both a fantasy junkie and a working reporter, I am told that I can't fully experience Twitter until I truly understand how easy it is to get last-minute injury updates. Very easy, it turns out. I know because at 11:40 a.m. my left pants pocket starts chirping. I whip out my phone to discover that ESPN football insider Adam Schefter has informed me (and 55,000 of his closest friends) that Reggie Wayne -- who has been carrying my squad but is questionable with a groin injury -- is active. Instead of hunting down the news, the news hunted me down. Suddenly, this tweeting thing isn't so evil.
Then it hits me: On one hand, Twitter serves my personal agenda by providing crucial information. On the other, that news often comes directly from the jocks. Maybe you heard about Allen Iverson's using Twitter to scoop his signing with the Grizzlies, or Chad Ochocinco's plans to start his very own Twitter-based news network (OCNN). How long, I ask myself, before players like Reggie Wayne start tweeting their own last-minute injury updates? How long, I continue to ask myself, before media folk like Schefter -- and [gulp] me -- are no longer deemed necessary?
My fears are somewhat allayed when I talk to Rams running back Steven Jackson, an avid sketch artist who took heat during the off-season when he posted a drawing of a naked woman holding a gun. He told me, "You have to treat Twitter like it's a press conference." As a result, the so-called unfiltered connection becomes more filtered each day -- meaning, more like traditional media.
[Phew.]
Which isn't to say that Twitter can't be used as a tool for progress. Lance Armstrong, who, with 2.2 million followers, is second only to Shaquille O'Neal (2.6 million) among jocks, uses it to advance the cause of his foundation. And college coaches like Pete Carroll and John Calipari embrace it, using it to spread the gospel of their programs to recruits and boosters alike. Tony Hawk uses it for everything from soliciting Halloween costume suggestions to organizing international scavenger hunts for old gear he leaves in random cities he visits. "They want to feel like they're part of it," says Hawk of his 1.8 million backers, third most among jocks. "So you have to engage them."
Of course, to engage fans, you have to have fans. If you're Hawk, the first thing you do when you join Twitter is send a tweet to your buddy Lance Armstrong, who happily introduces you to his googillion followers, and soon you've got a googillion followers too (it ain't called social networking for nothing). If you're me, the first thing you do is send a tweet to one of your buddies at The Magazine who introduces you to his 1,700 followers, and before you know it you've got ... 58 followers. While this may sound like a small number, it is enough to make me feel like people are listening. And maybe some of those people are athletes. Maybe, just maybe, Twitter can help me get my reporting done instead of shoving me out of a job. So, like Hawk says, I engage, and I send this tweet: "@THE_REAL_SHAQ Eddie Matz from ESPN Mag. Doing a story on jocks who tweet. Got a sec to chat?"
The Big Microblogger's following is larger than the population of 15 different U.S. states. The odds of his actually seeing my message are roughly equivalent to the odds of my dunking on him. Then again, he is a man of the people who once tweeted his location at a Phoenix diner in search of company.
While waiting for Shaq to hit me back, I send out similar feelers to other jocks and get no response. And that bothers me, because it feeds my deepest issue with Twitter: Everybody's more than happy to talk at you, but nobody wants to talk with you.
Even Twitter execs follow this rule. Two e-mails to company headquarters requesting an interview go unanswered. A friend who knows a Twitter board member passes along my message. Still nothing. I'd pick up the telephone (call me old-fashioned), but there is no working number to be found. Not on Twitter. Not on 411.com. Not anywhere. Okay, I get it. Twitter eschews turn-of-the-21st-century communication devices. So I tweet company creator Jack Dorsey and CEO Evan Williams. Surely they'll respond, I think. I am playing by their rules. But I never hear back.
Still, I'd be lying to say Twitter hasn't grown on me. It's a great way to get news -- fantasy or otherwise -- and an occasional glimpse into the minds of my favorite athletes.
Just as long as I don't try to have an actual conversation with them.
Eddie Matz is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.
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