Well Pulse Wrestling fans, we can’t decide which topic I wrestle with tonight so we’re leaving it up to you! Just download the IP App and select your favorite article topic for today’s Penny Candy!
And thus we have one of the most annoying factors in modern wrestling; Apps and Social Media.
Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand why the ‘E has latched onto things like Twitter for free social advertising, (years after Twitter was actually relevant), but I think we can all agree they’ve done so in typical WWE style; Grab a horse that USED to be the edgy hip new thing and beat it dead into the ground until everyone is sick of that horse in a desperate attempt to be “with it”. Kinda like the way they ruined Cena.
Cena, regardless of whatever your personal opinions, is a nice guy, a decent capable wrestler, and a good entertainer. But like Hogan fell victim to Vince’s wrong thinking. Vince has always suffered under the delusion that if a thing is super popular with the fans, then that thing needs to be a priority focus to the detriment of the rest of the product. And that kind of “Push THIS one thing to the moon, everything else is an afterthought” mentality only worked once, with Stone Cold. People got sick and bored of Hogan. They got sick and bored with the Rock. (My dislike of the Rock aside, his popularity when he returned a couple of years ago was in large part due to him having been away long enough to be missed, but at the end of his first time around, the fans were getting sick of his schtick), and now Cena.
And that’s how WWE has approached the social media thing. By hammering it into the ground until they make the average person LESS likely to join Twitter or Tout or Facebook. I’ve followed the #RAW conversations on Twitter and they’re a mess. I’d estimate 90-95% of those involved were twitter addicts to begin with. The average Raw Tweet consists of ;
@TwitterMonkey txtspk txtspk Cena YES!YES!YES! lolol txtspk HHH Suxors! #Hashtagthis #Hashtagthat #HashtagTakesYouToTheMat
No one in the Twitter conversation really has anything to say. They’re just marks in text form digitally throwing up their big foam fingers screaming “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” when the camera is on them in the hopes of seeing themselves on the Twitter Crawl at the bottom of the screen. Anyone who might actually have anything relevant to add to the conversation is generally loathe to do so.
Same on Facebook. I’ve watched the conversation threads on WWE wall posts, and they’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect; a bunch of wannabe tough guys issuing empty threats at each other over stuff on Raw trying to sound clever and badass like they’re auditioning to pimp a PPV. One example was two nights ago when they posed the question “Is Cena coming back too soon?” I scrolled through and nearly EVERY comment was either “Yay Cena! Yes! He’s been gone too long!” or “F**k Cena! Bitch needs to NEVER come back!”, and the requisite arguing each side of that particular coin engenders.
I decided to join in, with, as of the last time I checked the thread, the sadly ONLY sensible comment, suggesting that he may be pushing himself too hard to return quickly from serious surgery and that he ought to give himself more recovery time to minimize the risk of reinjury. Can you guess the content of the replies I got?
A debate sprang over whether or not Cena was on roids and if they’d help or hinder his surgical recovery.
Because that’s the nature of the internet. It’s full of stupid insensitive self-absorbed people who think in soundbites and want to push themselves with no real consequences for being assholes. And almost every fan with a Twitter or a Facebook account thinks they’re awesome and super important as if the WWE actually gives a flying f**k about fan opinion 99% of the time. WWE ONLY cares what the fans think when the fans outright rebel against expectations and force their hand. Most of us on IP can probably agree we never EVER expected Danielson to end up in a sustained push for the WWE title, and the way he’d been used prior does suggest the ‘E had no bigger plans for him than Team Hell No, but they fans made it ridiculously clear; this is our guy, we will pay good money to see him, we love this dude, you better start pushing him”.
But that had little or nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter.
The problem at the end of the day is that they overdo the social media pimping. And the App pimping. Just a few weeks ago, I believe it was Stephanie who mentioned the WWE App in an in-ring promo AND THE APP GOT BOOED. When a silly useless program for your smartphone gets bigger heel heat than Steph the Evil Bitch Boss Lady was getting, that should have clued them in to how big of a failure their marketing really is.
It’s human nature to rebel when someone is trying to force something on us repeatedly.
All the time that Cole spends pimping Social Media and the App? Could be spent talking more about what’s happening in the ring, or promoting the talent. Instead they’re reaching insane depths of silliness with it, such as when Bray Wyatt, a “cult leader living in the swamps of Florida away from the trappings of modern society” still had a twitter account to pimp his debut on the coming week’s episode of Raw.
It IS a modern world, and Social Media HAS became an integrated part of First World life. There’s no denying that.
But Vince and the ‘E need to FINALLY realize a horse serves you better if you RIDE it, not if you beat it mercilessly into the dirt until no once can bear to look at it anymore.
We now return you to pretending you watch Supernatural for the plot and not to think REALLY bad things you sicko.
