Wrestling with Social Media

From a person that left social media to a person that now has a Twitter account for my social media class, there is only one thing that stayed relevant, pro-wrestling social media accounts. For me, social media has become a platform in which wrestlers and promotion can use promote matches, future, and current wrestling gimmicks, and upcoming PPVs.

For me, social media is a way for these promotions and wrestlers to promote themselves whether it promotes future matches, debut gimmicks months before TV, or even connect to the fans. Whether it be AEW’s use of YouTube with Being the Elite or even the millions of followers that WWE and their superstars have on all social media platforms, it has helped the growth in popularity of pro-wrestling.

One of the main aspects of social media is the way that it allows people to connect with each other. For me, it has never been easier to connect to everything pro-wrestling. From rumors to news breaks, everything is covered and draws the opinion of thousands. This also works in the promotion’s and wrestler’s favor as it allows for promotion to have another way to promote the brand and wrestlers have an outlet that allows them to further their brand or even show their followers that they are still human and not entirely their gimmick.

Two main examples of this come from both WWE and AEW. AEW is run by the Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes. Both producers and wrestlers for AEW they have used YouTube blog Being the Elite to first promote their vision of pro wrestling to now using the blog to further storylines in AEW. WWE also has a gimmick called the “Fiend,” played by another gimmick, Bray Wyatt has used his Twitter account to promote this new gimmick. This allowed him to have a presence on TV and Twitter that showed the two sides to his new gimmick. He now has the side he shows on TV which is Bray Wyatt but the Fiend controls his social media as he sends messages to his future opponents with the phrase “let me in” hidden somewhere in each tweet.

The future of social media for me is something that is hard to define due to the fact that social media is constantly changing but if there is anything that I know is that if a new platform is created or even a new feature to social media is added the wrestling community will ultimately be a part of it.