![]() ![]() Steph Curry drops a defender and hits a 40-foot three-pointer? STEPH CRAZY DIFFERENT. Zion Williamson dunks on someone? HE JUST DIFFERENT. Sure, you can add a few words to make it seem like your knowledge of the player is a little DEEPER than say, the guy who only follows 12 of these highlight apps on his phone, but the results are still the same. "He Different" “He Different” is the “Savage” of today’s modern online sports hive culture. What I am upset with is how the Armchair General Managers of today’s sports world buy into these apps and Twitter memes and re-use the same content and descriptions for EVERY SINGLE HYPE VIDEO, whether on Instagram or one of these sports content apps. As a person who has hosted a TV show on the history of slang language ( America’s Secret Slang – History Channel 2011-2014) I have full-blown knowledge of how etymology and word meanings can change over time, so if you use words from the past in a new context today, I am not upset with that. Ten years ago, it was “dope.” Five years ago it was “clean.” Three years ago, it was, “savage.” These words appeared in every hip-hop lyric, NBA player description, and 2K player bio – without most of the folks using this term understanding that words like “Savage” initially surfaced as a derogatory term. I Know Internet Slang Instagram users love finding a phrase and immediately turning it into the next “woke” description to explain how a guy can pull off a crafty in-game move. LaMelo Ball dribbles through his legs once – “Oh, he DIFFERENT.” And the most overused, annoying, and simple-minded internet bullshit expression of the past three years: “He Different.” It is especially annoying in the basketball world, where certain “phrases” make constant appearances in the thousands of comments below every image or video: “NGL (Not gonna lie) – THAT WAS HARD” – Oh, thanks for telling us you’re “not gonna lie.” “LaMelo Bout to be GOATED bruh.” “GOATed” – a word that will soon be entering the Webster’s Dictionary to describe someone who is about to become the “Greatest Of All Time” at their chosen profession. How Instagram Hype Machines are Changing the World of Sports What Language Are We Speaking? On the rare sports apps that actually feature feats of true athletic prowess, app users post comments, fan pages promote their own similar handles, and uneducated social media “sports junkies” consistently toss around the same words to describe how they are feeling about a video they just watched for the 150 th time. Now, that type of content is available every third post. Back in the glory days of ESPN’s SportsCenter, you had to wait until the end of the “Top Ten” segment to see a guy in his driveway hitting a 150-foot behind-the-back full-court shot off the top of his neighbor’s garage while wearing a furry costume. ![]() From a photo of The Rock in a fanny pack to backyard hoopers doing impersonations of their favorite players to guys flipping playing cards across a room into paper clips, if it’s at all funny, competitive or impressive, it gets featured. ![]() ![]() People consider any video posted today to be a “sports highlight,” no matter what it consists of. Merely 30 minutes after posting it, the video had 2.4 million “likes.” Most of these Instagram accounts, which range from House of Highlights to Overtime to – at this point SportsCenter itself – are certified highlight reel dump sites that pander towards youth culture and easily boast of upwards of 20 million followers. It was an Instagram highlight of a hyped-up player who has been proving his worth thus far in the NBAbut is in no way as good as a player like, say, Ja Morant, who gets less hype. Twitter: A recent scroll through my Instagram feed featured no less than 10 separate “sports content” handles re-purposing the same LaMelo Ball put-back dunk highlight against the Pacers with a stupid, less-than-creative caption like “LAMELO PUT BACK: TOUGH.” That was it. ![]()
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