Antonio Brown has long made headlines for his spectacular play on the field as receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. But lately he has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Social media has completely taken over Brown and has caused his career and life to spiral out of control.
James Moor said "as technological revolutions increase their social impact, ethical problems increase." This statement is especially true when referring to Antonio Brown because he has abused social media to an extent that is rarely ever seen. One instance of this is when he live streamed him unleashing a profanity-laced tirade against police officers in Florida and the mother of his children. His behavior in the video is completely unethical and disrespectful. It sets a bad example for the millions of kids who are sure to have seen this video on their social media feed and look up to athletes as role models.
Shannon Vallor said "Honesty as a virtue is the willingness in words and deeds to put one's authentic self in play, and as such, it involves the assumption of a certain risk - the risk of being disliked, the risk of giving offence the risk of seeming different or being misunderstood." Antonio Brown's behavior on social media has revealed him to be a person whom no one wants to be associated with. He has burned many of the friendships he created while he was in the league including with Juju Smith Schuster who was a former teammate of Brown and someone who admitted that Antonio Brown was his role model. Brown took personal shots at him and even went so far as to call him a bum for not putting up better numbers on the field. Brown often claims that he is misunderstood and his actions are misinterpreted but it is hard to believe somebody who consistently does immature things like this. Antonio Brown was given the nickname "Always Boomin" because of his many endorsement deals and investments that has made him millions of dollars and kept claiming that "Business is Boomin". It became his catchphrase while he was still best wide receiver in the NFL and was playing under a lucrative contract. But now he is unemployed and there is even a warrant out for his arrest. His longtime agent has also dropped him and asked him to get some help. Clearly "Business ain't Boomin".
In referring to Moor's quote, it appears that you are making the argument that with the increase in social media usage, there are challenges in maintaining one's image as a celebrity. Your inclusion of Vallor's quote makes it seem that you are then addressing an individual's authenticity in relation to social media. I think you are getting at an interesting issue, here, but you aren't exactly spelling out the argument in a way that is clearly addressed and backed by the quotes you've pulled. Are you saying that with the increase in celebrities' social media presence, it becomes ever more important to maintain an authentic self online? Or that it becomes harder to get away with being an asshole because it's becoming extremely difficult to hide our authentic selves from media?
ReplyDelete