PSA to Online Illinois Fans

#28      

APS iMBA

Urbana, IL
Thanks for mentioning this. I saw a lot of negativity towards Mark Smith for example when he transferred to Mizzou. Why on earth as an Illinois fan would you publicly rag on a kid that age for transferring? It is not a good look at all.
 
#29      

illiniCA

DC Area
The only things I have a problem with is negativity at kids when the don't commit or transfer.

None of the other negativity seems unique to me.
 
#30      

sacraig

The desert
Eh, disagree. There's been a pretty well-documented but casually tracked trend of relatively higher activity amongst Illinois fans than other programs, particularly compared to programs of similar stature (i.e. bad). And when all those active engagers with recruits get upset when some recruit spurns the Illini, it isn't surprising that we have a relatively higher incidence of poor-taste tweets. I think the two points are definitely connected. More users + lots of recruiting letdowns = tons of opportunities for tweets that reflect poorly on Illinois.

Now, I don't have stats on this of course, because that would be a next-level waste of time. But anecdotally, our twitter activity does seem to be higher than say a Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc.

The bolded statements contradict each other. Without stats, it's just an unsubstantiated claim and not "well-documented." The one person we do have that claims to have looked into this as part of his job (as far as I know) is Alex Roux in his role for BTN, and according to him, there is no notable difference between our fan base and other fan bases in the Big Ten online. At the very least, if we are going by people's claims not supported by direct statistics, I will choose to believe the guy who at least does this as part of his job.

Twitter (and Facebook and Snapchat and...) in general is ugly. Fan bases, especially the passionate ones, can get ugly. The marriage of the two is ugly. This is not an Illinois problem. I'd love to clean it up, but I'd also love to stop pretending this is somehow unique to us.
 
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#31      

Deleted member 649710

D
Guest
But I've become GREAT buds with Khalil Tate by tweeting at him the past 48 hours. He even liked one of my posts! DIA should comp me season tix after he commits. #littyvILLe #illgang19 #creepyfan #wewillwin #sarcasm
 
#32      
But I've become GREAT buds with Khalil Tate by tweeting at him the past 48 hours. He even liked one of my posts! DIA should comp me season tix after he commits. #littyvILLe #illgang19 #creepyfan #wewillwin #sarcasm

This crowd is the worst to me... people actually believe this.
 
#33      
Practice squad. Wasn’t drafted but your implication that a gamer can’t make a team makes you the mean old man now.

It was more a joke on the addictive aspect of Fortnite, not really on age or gamers not making teams. Athletes of all ages have been playing video games for many decades now. But apparently Fortnite is reaching new highs with respect to addition on people of all ages playing video games (not just athletes). For the first time ever I had parents asking me to talk to some of my players about regulating their time on Fortnite and it seems many schools have addressed that issue with parents, for that particular game. :)
 
#34      

KrushCow31

Former Krush Cow
Chicago, IL
Only recruit I've ever interacted with was Juwan Evans when he asked everyone to follow him on snapchat, so I did and he for some reason followed me back and would view my story like even when he was playing in the NBA. Not anymore though. But I can still see his story lol.

I think the big difference is unsolicited vs solicited. Some recruits ask for and love the attention and actually get upset when they aren't shown love or get enough likes or followers. Ayo loved getting followers and would constantly ask people to follow him on insta and like his stuff etc.
 
#35      
I've been on other boards which show no more or less negativity than the Illini boards i go on, some have been much worse. I don't get on twitter and all that stuff nor do i contact recruits. I don't agree with bashing these kids publicly when they transfer or don't commit. But if these kids so choose to get on boards, twitter and what not be warned you may not like what you read.
 
#36      

sacraig

The desert
If you want to see a mess of an online fanbase, go take a look at that Wake Forest board.
 
#37      
Every fan base has their crazies. Living in states other than IL I’ve seen worse. It kind of goes with the territory, after all “fan” is short for fanatical.
 
#38      
Trying to police other people's posts on social media is about the biggest exercise in futility that I can imagine. The fact that these are the straws people are clutching at as fans now shows what a sad state the program is in.
 
#40      
I actually think it’s the losing all the games and missing all the recruits that shows that.

Disagree. Losing games and recruits has been par for the course. When social media is to "blame" things have hit new lows. Let's hope it can be turned around, but social media posts or lack thereof are not the lever for doing so. A lot of frustration, but we all want to see the program do well. Go Illini!