Lin-Sanity or Insanity…

If you haven’t already heard, there is a new phenom in the sports industry named Jeremy Lin who plays point guard for the New York Knicks. Lin has recently taken the sports world by storm, or shall I say, the sports world has taken him by storm, with a lot of helpful winds from social media. Nicknames such as “Lin-sanity”, “Mr. Lin-credible”, and “Super Lin-tendo”, have grown from the depths of social media and into the platform of the sports industry. In most cases, this story would have been the talk of the town for a week or so, but with social media, there is no telling when or if this story will ever die down.  Every sports channel, talk show, and radio personality brings this story up at least four times per show, which can begin to get overwhelming, at least for those living outside of Taiwan and New York.

            Social media has two faces. The first face is obviously that of having a strong positive influence on how others perceive you and how you want to be recognized, both professionally and socially. The second face has to do with the negativity that can come from a social media presence, either self-inflicted or from an outside source. In Jeremy Lin’s case, too much attention can end up burning out his welcome to the hearts of sports fan within America. Similar to Tim Tebow and the whole Tebowmania movement, outside sources can sometimes overdo it and can cost them more than they help.

            Social media has become a dangerous game of stardom roulette where being too famous can lead to becoming an annoyance to others. This is particularly sad for good guy athletes who do not ask for such attention. Tim Tebow was victim to this attention bug that bit him extremely hard and now has its teeth sunken into Jeremy Lin and the Lin-sanity movement.

 And to make Jeremy’s social bug bite bigger, here are some of Jeremy’s social media outlets.

https://twitter.com/ - !/jlin7

http://www.facebook.com/jeremylin7

Also, Check out these links to learn more about Jeremy Lin and his rise within the sports world:

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP3ba67ee16b1a499a82d5f8cc193da96f.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/opinion/brooks-the-jeremy-lin-problem.html

References      

Rosenburg, M. (Photographer). (2012). Tebow comparisons not fair to jeremy lin; he's much better story read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/michael_rosenberg/02/14/lin.tebow/index.html