The NBA community, like many others, has grown rather close to social media. Over the past few years, NBA Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit have blossomed into busy and buzzing platforms, where conversations about basketball and life are constantly taking place.
So when that was taken away in a rare Facebook/Instagram outage, it generated some pretty interesting reactions on Twitter.
Instagram and Facebook down bad right now pic.twitter.com/0kG5ZfaxcQ
— BIG3 (@thebig3) October 4, 2021
Live look at the IG bots………. pic.twitter.com/3zHNeu328K
— Memphis Grizzlies (@memgrizz) October 4, 2021
We just have TikTok and Twitter to go, and we'd know what it's like for Kawhi Leonard.
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) October 4, 2021
social channels that are working correctly for our first game:
t̶w̶i̶t̶t̶e̶r̶
i̶n̶s̶t̶a̶g̶r̶a̶m̶
f̶a̶c̶e̶b̶o̶o̶k̶
TikTok: pic.twitter.com/Hrw1V5vQKI
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) October 4, 2021
.@Twitter >>>> Carry the hell on…
— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) October 4, 2021
One of the best reactions, however, came from Chicago Bulls big man Nikola Vucekic, who managed to throw shade at both Instagram and some of its most loyal users as well:
Wouldn’t it be great if Instagram just stayed down forever so we could go to events without people recording every second of it for their stories?
Wouldn’t it be great if Instagram just stayed down forever so we could go to events without people recording every second of it for their stories?
— Nikola Vucevic (@NikolaVucevic) October 4, 2021
Certainly, the rise of social media (as good and fun as it is) has led to some controversies. Sometimes, people get overly obsessed with using the platform, and it becomes a distraction. Sometimes, social media fuels feelings of jealousy or envy as it causes everyone to compare themselves with others.
For athletes, in particular, social media has become an outlet for their biggest haters and trolls to spread negativity online.
“If you have an off night as the most recognizable athletes in the world…” said Karl-Anthony Towns. “It’s he sucks, he sucks. But they forgot that you just had 40 for 5 straight games, and you go get 16 and they’re like “He’s trash.”
That’s the thing about being an NBA player. Once the fans make a narrative of you, that’s it. They don’t want to change it. They don’t wanna see no change, they don’t want to see no different opinion. It’s like “No, I’m the smartest person in the world. That’s it. I’m putting it on Twitter.”
Think about James Harden, they talk about him in the playoffs… Give me an argument about why you think that. Show me statistical facts of why you think that…”Well I don’t gotta show you that, I just know, I watch basketball everyday”… Let me tell you the facts. He averaged 31.6 points in the playoffs, he was killing, he was trying to drag his team into the Finals. And you’re telling me the man struggled?”
Obviously, critics existed long before social media. Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and all kinds of other athletes faced unparalleled levels of scrutiny and hate back during their heyday.
So while most people were just having a little fun trolling the whole situation on Monday, the outage did serve as a reminder to some of how social media has impacted and influenced our world.
