Earlier today the Arizona Diamondbacks started up a social media campaign where supposedly if one were to tweet a message including a #GoDbacks hash tag, said message would then be displayed on the scoreboard. The irony in the situation occurred when some Philly's fans caught on to the campaign. Immediately the tag was flooded with trolled messages. Withen hours #GodBacks was not only trending in Philadelphia and Phoenix, but nationally as well. All it took were some avid sports writers and bloggers, and a bunch of fans for #GoDbacks to be a nationally recognized campaign.
This trend can tell us alot about not only baseball but America as a whole.
We can relate this to Dellillo's Underworld. In Underworld, Dellillo retells Americas hidden history as a mass amount of interwoven and intersecting story lines each with a version of the story told in a personalized language that stems from a world that is complete unto itself. Very comparable to the #GodBacks campaign, which is enabling fans to input their own story into the continuing narrative the is baseball. Through the Go Dbacks trend, we can see a mass of opinions from both sides, and really all over, that come together to explain a single game, story, or event.
Regardless of weather the messages actually appeared on the scoreboard or not (I'm sure that they were filtered so only true DBacks fans got their tweet shown), this social media campaign helped to spread a story of a game to millions, and it encompasses what baseball truly is: a narrative.
Here are a few of the funnier tweets for your entertainment:
FanSince09 @FanSince09
Attn fan in section 132 row 5 seat 18: You look kind of Mexican. Prepare to show your papers. #GoDbacks
Mike Meech @meechone
I'm only 19 will someone buy me a beer? Meet me at the beer stand in section 104. #GoDbacks
Ramzy Nasrallah @ramzyn
Craig James killed five hookers at SMU. #GoDBacks
This is hilarious. I think you can consider this marketing campaign to be a swing and a miss. While I'm sure someone was sitting there filtering the messages, like you said, I'm sure the number of tweets being sent in reached an outrageous number. I feel for the poor guy whose job it was to filter through them and decide which made it on. What's most interesting about this though is to think about this whole new way of people being able to interact with the game thanks to mass media. Of course "the game" has been able to reach people that are thousands of miles away for decades now, but the idea of fans being able to reach back to the game from thousands of miles away is kind of a crazy thought when you think about it that way.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit. I just wrote at least a single-spaced-page in regard to your statement. Fuck my life. At least I now know that "control 'R'" does not create the "registered trademark" symbol. May this be a warning for you all.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was getting at, in a most brilliant manner, is that the elder gentlemen owning ballparks today are detached from the current generation- and this is why these things happen. God Fuck am I pissed about my comment being erased. Oh well, trust me, it was pretty fuckin' amazing.
By the way, GO YANKEES!
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and Sports Illustrated had published an issue dedicated entirely to them. Besides the narrative behind the World Series win, there were several articles written about the stories fans had to tell about their experiences during all the excitement. One woman was in labor and had the nurses bring in a television so she could watch while giving birth. The woman and her husband ended up naming their baby Damon (sad now though....). Another woman was on her death bed and held out to see them win and died several days later. This enabled the fans to be a huge part of the narrative that was the 2004 Red Sox.
ReplyDeletePS- Your background sucks Alex..................