A Letter From The Editor: The Twitter ‘Like’ heard around Steelers Nation will prove to be nothing

There are moments when running a website becomes an either/or type activity. Every day there are opportunities to cover stories, and sometime you have to choose which ones you put your time and attention towards.

Several factors come into play with this exercise:

• What stories will the fan base engage with the most?
• Which angle will draw the most traffic?
• Are we being unique in our perspective/story selection?

I could go on, but I think you get the picture when it comes to what stories we run, and what stories we might pass on.

As much as I hate to say it, there are times when I, personally, have wanted to pass on several stories, but if I did I would receive a, “Why didn’t you run with this story?” email from my superior.

Some examples of stories I would have rather passed on:

• Le’Veon Bell’s ridiculous Sports Illustrated interview after signing with the Jets.
• The endless Twitter and Instagram rants of Antonio Brown.
• Anytime the Steelers and politics are linked together.

The most recent story which would have made this list was the story of second year safety Terrell Edmunds “Liking” Antonio Brown’s “Two Face” tweet on Twitter.

As I said on our Steelers Preview podcast last week (you can hear the show below) I can’t believe fans are making such a big deal over this. Before diving into the logistics, understand I had no clue Edmunds even liked this tweet. Why? Because there are only two ways someone possibly found this information out.

1. On their main feed it showed up as Edmunds liking the tweet

or...

2. Someone went to Brown’s tweet, clicked on the likes and searched for Steelers who may have liked the tweet.

Either way, since I only look at my Twitter lists, and don’t time to go sifting through thousands of likes, I didn’t even know of this news when it happened. When I finally saw it, I couldn’t believe it was blowing up the way it did. Mainstream outlets were running with this story, and I kept thinking, “Really? This is happening? We are crucifying this guy for liking one of his friend’s tweets?!”

But it gets better, Edmunds felt the need to defend himself while speaking to the media this past week, explaining how he ‘Likes’ a lot of stuff on Twitter.

I can’t speak for everyone, but if you use social media you likely know at least someone who likes and shares almost everything. I know I have a relative who literally ‘Likes’ everything. I mean everything.

A video of grass growing: LIKE!

A video of paint drying: LIKE!

You get the picture...but what I’m trying to say is there are people who just like a lot of stuff on social media. But what I’m really trying to say is how silly this entire story has become, and how when the 2019 season officially begins no one will look back at Edmunds’ social media history and cite that as a reason why he may have made a key interception, or possibly missed a critical tackle.

I get it, it is all a part of the NFL machine which keeps chugging along 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, but there are times when we all need to take a step back and say, “Really?”

This story was one of those instances for me...