Is Social Media ruining the WWE product?

In today's wrestling landscape, the use and reliance of social media is inevitable. Event information can be more easily accessed, fans can interact with other fans easier than before, wrestlers can make names for themselves, and discussions can be more easily created. There is also more accessibility to content from various companies, with companies uploading clips or streaming entire shows on YouTube, broadening their reach to levels never seen before.

WWE have been pioneers in the way social media is used, promoting and releasing content through their various platforms. But this has led to the brand losing touch with what made them the biggest wrestling company in the world to start with. They have began to use internet clicks, YouTube views and social media likes to decide what their fans want to see. This has led to increasingly voiced displeasure amongst the most hardcore of fans, although this criticism has seemingly fallen upon deaf ears.

Take the recent Lana/Bobby Lashley/Rusev storyline on RAW. The highest viewed videos for WWE on YouTube come from this storyline week after week. On paper, this means the content is popular, right? Most viewed, highly talked about. The TV hashtag trends on Twitter. This translates to a successful storyline in the minds of the higher-ups in the company as well as Vince McMahon, but this can not be any more wrong.

A lot of the discussion and feedback in regards to the 'successful' storylines has been negative, with fans everywhere calling for it to end. While there are some fans who enjoy the product (and I am in no way discrediting their viewpoints) and the angles on the weekly program, the majority of the hardcore audience (and a portion of the casual fans) resent the content being put out, and WWE should be listening to them.

But this isn't the only problem. There is often no real follow up to angles from the week before (see Daniel Bryan's interactions with Shinsuke Nakamura and Sami Zayn; Kofi Kingston losing the WWE Championship in 9 seconds), there is no long-term storytelling (Daniel Bryan's "Captain Planet" gimmick - the tag team championships were not redesigned to be eco-friendly) and shows are reportedly being re-written just hours before they are due to air.

This lack of continuity has led to WWE losing touch with what originally made them great. The times where stories were varied and left fans in disbelief week after week, nothing was rushed or forced.

Kayfabe was upheld, and the product was kept to look as realistic as possible, to make it appear to the audience that the wrestlers DESPISED one another. Now there are constant behind the scenes documentaries commissioned by WWE and available on the network, social media shares photos of wrestlers out of character - depriving the fans of immersing themselves in the fantasy that only pro wrestling can provide.

Audience reactions are another issue. Wrestlers used to be pushed dependent on organic responses from the fanbase, and the company stayed the course with their champions due to past reactions and in accordance with the longer stories being played out on TV and PPV. These times are seemingly gone, however, as the company is either too late with pushing talents that catch fire with the audience, or rush everything, push the talent really hard and cause the fans to turn on them quickly.

Finally, and the absolute biggest issue of social media in today's landscape is the toxicity of certain groups of fans. Tribalism, Stan culture and gatekeeping have increased hugely. Fans and wrestlers alike have become more and more afraid of voicing their opinion for fear of backlash and a torrent of abuse from fans who hide behind their devices. This mentality has pushed fans, both new and old, away from the product and made the industry more of a niche product than ever before.

Fans are turned off from watching certain companies due to the tribe-like mentality of their fans. Anything that isn't what they like is frowned upon and scrutinised. There is a lack of civil discussion, and when a fan expresses their opinion it is questioned. There is a lack of freedom, and the while companies like WWE are using social media to try and create discussion, there is constant arguing and bullying as part of the debates which takes away the joy of interacting with other fans.

Something needs to change in regard to social media usage by companies. Money is being lost in all departments as fans are turned away from the product that is so heavily dependent on social media content. But can that change come to fruition with more people relying on technology to consume information?

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