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Somebody needs to get the team off social media


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20 minutes ago, Maedhros said:

Perhaps. But that example reads to me as a cautionary tale about the disposable way we treat that workforce. I certainly don't consider it to be a guideline for the empathy - or lack thereof - we should have for someone being dragged online.

Disposable?  What if the criticism was true? 

"I ate at Stinky's House of Ribs last night and didn't have the best experience.  I have noticed that they are really struggling to provide the great service they used to in the past.  It really disappointed me to see the restaurant fail to live up to expectations again given I was starting to hear good things about it again."  Nobody named by name.  A pretty mild negative review.  In response your hostess sends a middle finger emoji and tells the person to sod off.  Your line cook dares them to come say it in their face.  2 servers tell them to "keep that energy" and one puts a pretty innocuous "that sucks" kind of emoji.

That's what happened.  You are the store manager, what do you do?

Miller Kopp basically said people are not saying negative things to their face.  They are going and seeking out the negativity.  It is sports, like it or not there is a 24/7 commenter culture around this.  From ESPN to us dummies.  The thing is, as an athlete, you almost have to go and look for the negativity.  I guarantee that their @s on social media are overwhelmingly positive but these guys dwell on the negative.  If they used that to fuel their drive that would be one thing, but it seems to have the opposite effect on them.

If we can have an expectation on 18 and 19 year old restaurant workers to not negatively engage with customers on social media, I think we can have that same expectation of 23 year old men getting paid in scholarships, room and board, and cash to play a game at one of the country's top Universities.

Edited by IUCrazy2
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8 minutes ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Disposable?  What if the criticism was true? 

"I ate at Stinky's House of Ribs last night and didn't have the best experience.  I have noticed that they are really struggling to provide the great service they used to in the past.  It really disappointed me to see the restaurant fail to live up to expectations again given I was starting to hear good things about it again."  Nobody named by name.  A pretty mild negative review.  In response your hostess sends a middle finger emoji and tells the person to sod off.  Your line cook dares them to come say it in their face.  2 servers tell them to "keep that energy" and one puts a pretty innocuous "that sucks" kind of emoji.

That's what happened.  You are the store manager, what do you do?

Miller Kopp basically said people are not saying negative things to their face.  They are going and seeking out the negativity.  It is sports, like it or not there is a 24/7 commenter culture around this.  From ESPN to us dummies.  The thing is, as an athlete, you almost have to go and look for the negativity.  I guarantee that their @s on social media are overwhelmingly positive but these guys dwell on the negative.  If they used that to fuel their drive that would be one thing, but it seems to have the opposite effect on them.

If we can have an expectation on 18 and 19 year old restaurant workers to not negatively engage with customers on social media, I think we can have that same expectation of 23 year old men getting paid in scholarships, room and board, and cash to play a game at one of the country's top Universities.

That's a pretty good post.  

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25 minutes ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Disposable?  What if the criticism was true? 

"I ate at Stinky's House of Ribs last night and didn't have the best experience.  I have noticed that they are really struggling to provide the great service they used to in the past.  It really disappointed me to see the restaurant fail to live up to expectations again given I was starting to hear good things about it again."  Nobody named by name.  A pretty mild negative review.  In response your hostess sends a middle finger emoji and tells the person to sod off.  Your line cook dares them to come say it in their face.  2 servers tell them to "keep that energy" and one puts a pretty innocuous "that sucks" kind of emoji.

That's what happened.  You are the store manager, what do you do?

Miller Kopp basically said people are not saying negative things to their face.  They are going and seeking out the negativity.  It is sports, like it or not there is a 24/7 commenter culture around this.  From ESPN to us dummies.  The thing is, as an athlete, you almost have to go and look for the negativity.  I guarantee that their @s on social media are overwhelmingly positive but these guys dwell on the negative.  If they used that to fuel their drive that would be one thing, but it seems to have the opposite effect on them.

If we can have an expectation on 18 and 19 year old restaurant workers to not negatively engage with customers on social media, I think we can have that same expectation of 23 year old men getting paid in scholarships, room and board, and cash to play a game at one of the country's top Universities.

I highly doubt that. 

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6 minutes ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Disposable?  What if the criticism was true? 

"I ate at Stinky's House of Ribs last night and didn't have the best experience.  I have noticed that they are really struggling to provide the great service they used to in the past.  It really disappointed me to see the restaurant fail to live up to expectations again given I was starting to hear good things about it again."  Nobody named by name.  A pretty mild negative review.  In response your hostess sends a middle finger emoji and tells the person to sod off.  Your line cook dares them to come say it in their face.  2 servers tell them to "keep that energy" and one puts a pretty innocuous "that sucks" kind of emoji.

That's what happened.  You are the store manager, what do you do?

Miller Kopp basically said people are not saying negative things to their face.  They are going and seeking out the negativity.  It is sports, like it or not there is a 24/7 commenter culture around this.  From ESPN to us dummies.  The thing is, as an athlete, you almost have to go and look for the negativity.  I guarantee that their @s on social media are overwhelmingly positive but these guys dwell on the negative.  If they used that to fuel their drive that would be one thing, but it seems to have the opposite effect on them.

If we can have an expectation on 18 and 19 year old restaurant workers to not negatively engage with customers on social media, I think we can have that same expectation of 23 year old men getting paid in scholarships, room and board, and cash to play a game at one of the country's top Universities.

When Trayce posts a hand-written letter mailed to him directly, it's impossible to claim the players only see negativity when they seek it out. I don't go looking for negativity, and yet I find it regularly in the replies to any tweet. Kopp was a regular target even early season when the team was undefeated, so it's not as simple as win and this all goes away. Fox College Hoops posted a highlight of a Kopp three from the Northwestern game on Twitter, and tagged him in it. Someone replied "As an IU fan, our season ended as soon as we lost 2 starters. I've given up hope on this team for good." Since Kopp was tagged he received a notification about it, didn't have to seek that comment out or anything.

Mild as things go, but not much fun to read when you're one of the players out there still trying to win games. And the players see these comments constantly. Your review is mild as well, sure. But then why such a response? If I'm the store manager then I know my employees and I'm figuring there has to be more to the story. The image posted on Instagram was mild as well, but that wasn't the only comment made that led to this reaction, and we both know it. It's disingenuous to pretend the players don't see far more hateful stuff on a regular basis, and unreasonable to think they wouldn't dwell on it. These are young people with the same challenges, insecurities and self-doubts as anyone else.

It's easy to say players should just avoid social media. For kids that have literally been around social media their whole life it's not that simple. I'm not going to be bothered when they occasionally lash out at the things said about them. Rather, I'm impressed it doesn't happen more often. I wouldn't have the same composure at their age (you can tell because I'm right here going back and forth with someone on a message board 😄.) So yeah, for me this whole thing is a non issue. It's just a normal human reaction.

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I think it's probably hard for a lot of us in our 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. to think through and understand how Gen Z thinks about social media and interacts with it, and really how they think about life in general. They're not wrong, it's just different and it's them. Just like Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers are all different.

 

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I will admit that I skimmed the thread and didn’t read everything thoroughly so if this was brought up before I do apologize. 

Social Media is a cancer. It’s terrible. Nothing good comes from it that can’t be gained through other avenues (perhaps a revenue stream for some).  With that being said, it isn’t going anywhere so we need to adjust.

I teach my kids in every day life, you can only control your controllables. Putting that to work in this context, we know social media is going nowhere. We know the vile fan is going nowhere (as mentioned earlier, this is a societal problem, not an IU problem). So, the players need to learn (and perhaps be taught/coached) to control those controllables. You control you. You control your input (by what you view). You control your output (by what you say). No one said it is easy or will be easy. But you can’t control what fans say and think. I’m in no way condoning the actions of the minuscule fraction of the fan base we are referencing. At the end of the day, control your controllables. 
 

#lifelessonsbynatty ;)

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25 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

I think it's probably hard for a lot of us in our 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. to think through and understand how Gen Z thinks about social media and interacts with it, and really how they think about life in general. They're not wrong, it's just different and it's them. Just like Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers are all different.

 

Yep, I work with a lot of people in their early/mid 20s and always enjoy their perspectives. I always spend a lot of time talking with them about music, movies, food, just life in general. It is a TOTALLY different world that they are growing up in. We learn a lot from each other. 

I would not want to try to make my way in this world like they are having to do. 

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You also can't really compare working in a restaurant to playing high major college basketball. 

Regular Joe's like us usually don't like to hear it, but playing basketball at IU means you're in the top 1%. You are uniquely talented. Uniquely talented people have the leeway to do things that "regular" people can't. 

I doubt the server or hostess at your local restaurant are uniquely talented and they are easily replaceable. 

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11 minutes ago, BGleas said:

You also can't really compare working in a restaurant to playing high major college basketball. 

Regular Joe's like us usually don't like to hear it, but playing basketball at IU means you're in the top 1%. You are uniquely talented. Uniquely talented people have the leeway to do things that "regular" people can't. 

I doubt the server or hostess at your local restaurant are not uniquely talented and are easily replaceable. 

Everybody is replaceable.  They may be in the top 1% (of a truly useless skill outside of this game if we are being honest) but there is always a steady stream of replacements out there.

Edited by IUCrazy2
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1 minute ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Everybody is replaceable.  They may be in the top 1% (of a truly useless skill outside of this game if we are being honest) but there is always a steady stream of replacements out there.

Not as easy though. I can't just cut TJD today and adequately replace him tomorrow. 

I can fire a hostess in a restaurant and have a new one the next day. 

What's tolerated and allowed isn't the same for everyone. It's the reason celebrity's get away with stuff everyday people like us can't get away with. 

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5 minutes ago, BGleas said:

Not as easy though. I can't just cut TJD today and adequately replace him tomorrow. 

I can fire a hostess in a restaurant and have a new one the next day. 

What's tolerated and allowed isn't the same for everyone. It's the reason celebrity's get away with stuff everyday people like us can't get away with. 

Yeah there are some differences, I am not calling for the players to be fired but as a staff or AD, I would have a bit of a punishment rubric for my athletes.  My point is that you have to take action as the leader, owner, manager, whatever to make sure your "employees" are not putting you in a bad light.  

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6 minutes ago, BGleas said:

Not as easy though. I can't just cut TJD today and adequately replace him tomorrow. 

I can fire a hostess in a restaurant and have a new one the next day. 

What's tolerated and allowed isn't the same for everyone. It's the reason celebrity's get away with stuff everyday people like us can't get away with. 

And even if you could go replace our players easily, you're picking from a pool of kids who largely will view things the same way as the guys we have now. 

Pretty tough sell to a 19 year old you're trying to get to transfer in or a 17 year old high schooler, that they should come here and have their social media use overly policed. That's largely not going to fly for this generation of players. 

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Just now, NotIThatLives said:

Remember shortly after Kaufman Renn committed to purdue he said he'd rather put in work than make videos about putting in work?  Stull sums up the perception of the program over 2 years later and a coaching change.  

Didn't he make a big production video for his announcement 

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3 hours ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Disposable?  What if the criticism was true? 

"I ate at Stinky's House of Ribs last night and didn't have the best experience.  I have noticed that they are really struggling to provide the great service they used to in the past.  It really disappointed me to see the restaurant fail to live up to expectations again given I was starting to hear good things about it again."  Nobody named by name.  A pretty mild negative review.  In response your hostess sends a middle finger emoji and tells the person to sod off.  Your line cook dares them to come say it in their face.  2 servers tell them to "keep that energy" and one puts a pretty innocuous "that sucks" kind of emoji.

That's what happened.  You are the store manager, what do you do?

Miller Kopp basically said people are not saying negative things to their face.  They are going and seeking out the negativity.  It is sports, like it or not there is a 24/7 commenter culture around this.  From ESPN to us dummies.  The thing is, as an athlete, you almost have to go and look for the negativity.  I guarantee that their @s on social media are overwhelmingly positive but these guys dwell on the negative.  If they used that to fuel their drive that would be one thing, but it seems to have the opposite effect on them.

If we can have an expectation on 18 and 19 year old restaurant workers to not negatively engage with customers on social media, I think we can have that same expectation of 23 year old men getting paid in scholarships, room and board, and cash to play a game at one of the country's top Universities.

For this analogy to be apt, you'd have also been visiting "Stinky's" twice a week for months and leaving negative reviews after nearly every visit, some of which do disparage particular employees, but you keep coming back week after week and posting the same vile ****. 

The players are responding to a pattern, not a one off.

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1 minute ago, rogue3542 said:

For this analogy to be apt, you'd have also been visiting "Stinky's" twice a week for months and leaving negative reviews after nearly every visit, some of which do disparage particular employees, but you keep coming back week after week and posting the same vile ****. 

The players are responding to a pattern, not a one off.

You would also have to have the complete inability to work as a server. (IU fans don't have the ability to be a D1 basketball player or close to it)

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13 minutes ago, rogue3542 said:

For this analogy to be apt, you'd have also been visiting "Stinky's" twice a week for months and leaving negative reviews after nearly every visit, some of which do disparage particular employees, but you keep coming back week after week and posting the same vile ****. 

The players are responding to a pattern, not a one off.

Point still stands.

I am not defending the people that go directly at the players (and none of them were tagged directly in that, the #iubb account was), but the players just need to keep a lid on it.  You don't like the negativity, you have 2 chances a week to flip the narrative.  Getting into it with people on social media is just a turn off.

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19 minutes ago, btownqb said:

You would also have to have the complete inability to work as a server. (IU fans don't have the ability to be a D1 basketball player or close to it)

Basically done arguing about it, I think it was a bad look.  If you are cool with players acting that way, more power to you.

Basically been the same story for 20 years.

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23 minutes ago, rogue3542 said:

For this analogy to be apt, you'd have also been visiting "Stinky's" twice a week for months and leaving negative reviews 

I always left a positive review 😗

Twice a week???🥰😍

Stinkys order:  medium rare….a little pink in the middle 😳

 

tried to censor the really bad ones 

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