Theres something irksome about the nonstop social media plugging that we're subject to on WWEs broadcasts. The commentators constantly plug Twitter during matches, each wrestler has their Twitter account presented under their name, and WWEs Did You Know announcements are almost always about how many followers or Facebook likes they and their performers have. While thats all fine, it doesnt lead to any tangible rewards for WWE. Its like the 2012 Make Kony Famous campaign; it makes everyone involved feel good about themselves, but nothing substantial changes in the end, and everyone looks like a fool afterwards for thinking that social media could actually be used to do something important. Worse, this obsession hinders storytelling in WWE on a large scale. By taking fans out of the match and plugging something relatively insignificant, the commentators ruin the matches theyre supposed to be calling and suggest to the audience that tweeting on their phones is more important than watching what's going on in the ring. If WWE kept things simple by having as few mentions of social media as possible (because by this point, everyones aware of social media and knows how to connect to their favorite wrestlers without the constant reminders), perhaps fans wouldnt spend so much time with their heads buried in their phones during the matches they should be watching attentively.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
