Fans betting against the Kenneth Walker pick is stupidest thing I've ever seen from Seahawks Twitter
Fans betting against the Kenneth Walker pick is stupidest thing I've ever seen from Seahawks Twitter
Re-visiting draft grades and comments after the 2022 draft
Seahawks Twitter has become too predictable.
I credit my two-year break from social media as the catalyst towards me being able to retain my sanity when logged into Twitter. The eight or nine years of my life that I spent as a daily user of Twitter now feels hazy, foggy, and like I was on autopilot. A worthless daily cycle that I didn’t even know was hurting my brain until I decided to take a break and read Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.
Most of you reading this won’t be able to relate. Over 90% of the worldwide social media users do not even have a Twitter account. Not 90% of the world population, but 90% of the world that uses social media in some form. Less than 9% of people with social media have Twitter.
Of the 206 million daily Twitter users, only 25% are in the U.S., which is about 50 million people. That seems like a lot of people (it’s actually only 15% of the U.S. population), but also consider that of those 50 million, about 37 million do not even tweet. They’re only reading. So that means that out of roughly 330 million Americans, maybe 13 million (4% of the U.S.) are actually logging into Twitter every day, writing messages, and hitting send or re-tweeting others.
That’s a lot of tweets coming from a small amount of people.
It’s estimated that about 18% of Americans smoke weed, 12% still smoke cigarettes (that’s 3x as many people as the number of people who tweet), 5% are vegetarian (still more than the number of daily Twitter users) and anywhere from 50-60% of U.S. citizens watch football.
Imagine 180 million people being “OK” with their general opinions, beliefs, and values being told by 13 million people on a website. Not just 13 million people, but 13 million people who have this affliction known as “social media addiction.” And to me, that’s the real issue.
I know that some readers don’t want to hear complaints about Twitter at all. Either they “get it” and are tired of hearing about it (“Well, just don’t use it then!”) or they don’t see what the problem is. Except that the solution to the problems caused by Twitter won’t be solved by The Simpsons’ “Just Don’t Look” strategy from a Treehouse of Horror episode.
Not when it seems like there are bad, unpopular opinions proliferating on that website that then permeate every non-Twitter corner of our lives. It’s not as though Twitter is Las Vegas and that what happens there, stays there. No. Because since so many of our journalists and famous people have prominent Twitter accounts—and because many journalists and content creators now incorrectly believe that their success on Twitter is “everything”—these opinions spread like wildfire.
Into our homes. Into our classrooms. Into our beds.
Just the other night, I was woken up by a tweet about Pete Carroll’s fourth down rate when it tried to sneak into my upstairs foyer through the dumbwaiter. Go away, tweets! You’re not welcome here!
As noted by the website socialmediatoday.com, original thoughts are becoming more obsolete by the day, which was supposed to be the opposite of Twitter’s purpose as a “town square for all ideas”:
So 82% of tweets, from all users, are replies and retweets, not original posts, with retweets being the dominant element. That could suggest that there’s not much original thought going around the Twitter-sphere, despite the amount of tweets being shared, while it also points to how the platform is being used to amplify certain elements through re-amplification.
I think that’s a perfect way to encapsulate how stupid Twitter looks once you are able to step back and look at the website without an addiction for “being good” on the website. These days, when something I tweet from the Seaside Joe Twitter account that goes even a lil’ viral, I’m just counting down the seconds until my notifications aren’t bombarded anymore.
Without that dopamine-fueled need for likes, retweets, and follows, I feel more free to just see Twitter for what it is, which is the echo chamber of unoriginal thoughts that so many of you already see it for anyway. To me, the only good tweets left are not going to be the trickle down parroting posts from the top of NFL Twitter to the people who are fighting for the leftover scraps by sharing the same beliefs as their heroes.
The good tweets will only be those who challenge popular narratives and that give original takes by speaking from a place of what they actually believe, not what they think will get them the most amount of attention and popularity.
It’s the latter strategy that left us with so many unoriginal thoughts shared about the Seattle Seahawks draft class, including the outpouring of anger, confusion, and ridicule for Pete Carroll’s decision to draft Kenneth Walker III with the 41st overall pick. I felt at the time and I have had no reason to change course ever since: The resounding sentiment for hating Seattle’s selection of Walker is by far the stupidest moment in Seahawks Twitter history.
As well as being unoriginal and easily identifiable as the parroting of someone else’s opinion.
For me, I had been defending the Walker pick before it even happened. It wasn’t just that I felt Walker (or Breece Hall) would be good NFL players, it was also based on the very simple idea that FANS LIKE PLAYERS WHO TOUCH THE FOOTBALL. And they love players who touch the football and then do exciting things when they have it.
Nobody was bitching and moaning about the running back position when Marshawn Lynch was doing Beast Mode things, so Seattle fans had as clear of a view of that possibility as any. For about five years, the Seahawks didn’t have a dynamic running back who could stay healthy, so it was easier to let the analytics crowd into your home on Sundays.
But you’d still have to be insane or ignorant to have not realized that running backs continue to have a larger role in the promotion of the NFL than any other position except for quarterbacks and maybe wide receivers. Ask Titans fans if they’re upset with the Derrick Henry pick, Vikings fans if they hate the Dalvin Cook pick, or Browns fans if they’re upset over the Nick Chubb pick.
You believe any of those fans are pissed off that they’re favorite team didn’t draft… center James Daniels? Guard Connor Williams? Linebacker Jahlani Tavai?
This isn’t always necessarily a question of positional value. We’re talking about abstract concepts that could have razor thin margins by comparison, if comparison was even possible. But let’s say that it is: Who is the least valuable left guard in the NFL who is still more valuable than Derrick Henry or Nick Chubb or Travis Etienne, I wonder?
How could anyone even answer that? I think few things in life other than addiction to social media and attention could even be responsible for making a person believe that they could have the answer to that question.
But when the Seahawks selected Walker with the 41st pick in the draft, the hundreds of people who have Twitter accounts and tweet about the team on a regular basis (hundreds, maybe thousands, but not tens of thousands) were mostly all convinced that they knew for a fact that Seattle had made a grave mistake.
Nevermind that almost any good team that you can think of right now (Eagles, Seahawks, Bills, Ravens, Chiefs, Titans, Vikings, Cowboys, Giants, Bengals, Jets) has recently drafted a first or second round running back. Nevermind all the reasons you could come up with that actually yes, running backs do matter.
Focus on the most simple value of all: YOU are a Seahawks fan. KENNETH WALKER III had just became a Seahawks player. The RUNNING BACK is going to touch the ball a lot. WALKER=DYNAMIC RUNNING BACK.
Betting against Kenneth Walker III as a pick that fans are going to LOVE when he hits the field is the stupidest thing that Seahawks Twitter has ever done. And that’s quite an accomplishment for Seahawks Twitter. I, of course, predicted this would happen, because as I’ve been saying I saw this coming since before the draft.
What else was going to swing around after Walker took the league by storm other than Seahawks fans (and the NFL media in general) praising Walker and adoring his every move? I just do not understand that bet. At all.
Just imagine a world where Seahawks Twitter would have given the team an “A” if they had drafted MALIK WILLIS or DESMOND RIDDER with the 41st pick, even though those quarterbacks didn’t get their names called until round three. There’s no logic there.
Imagine the Seahawks getting straight-A’s because they drafted David Ojabo or John Metchie, two players who’ve yet to debut (injuries) simply because they had “better positional value” despite no tangible concept to defend that point of view? Hey, I’m not anti-Ojabo or anything, but there’s some flaw in that draft grade analysis, is there not?
And the Seahawks could have bowled over that 1% (NFL Twitter) of the 4% (Americans who tweet) of the 25% (people who have accounts and actually tweet) of the 9% (people who have social media, including Twitter) if they had simply drafted Phidarian Mathis or Alontae Taylor or Cam Jurgens or Troy Anderson or Luke Goedeke instead of Ken Walker III.
Ah yes, how I love all of those news stories and highlights and constant talk about…Luke Goedeke. And Ed Ingram. And Bryan Cook. How exciting! Oh dear, if only the Seahawks had drafted Cole Strange!
No, it’s (unsurprisingly) Seattle’s super fun, super fast, super interesting running back who the NFL world is talking about. Who else?
Did football twitter truly forget about the part where they actually enjoy and are entertained by ya know… watching football? Or did they become too distracted by the need to be liked?
My suggestion is to take a break. You probably don’t even know you need it.
Let’s re-visit some more of those initial draft grades and Pete Carroll/running back bashing from Seahawks Twitter and the internet (The Athletic’s “D” for the pick, the national coverage, the practical plagiarism from one outlet to another) following the selection of Walker with the 41st overall pick: