I’m sure it happens throughout the year in the various sub-forums and I just don’t notice because I rarely venture into them. I am made more aware of it during the College Football season because that is when I spend most of my time away from Players Talk.
What I’m referring to is posters overly hyping a play. Not merely hyping but actually encouraging others to make the play themselves.
Personally I’ve never understood this type of posting. Sure, if you are a tout and your income is generated on others buying your advice then it makes sense, at least in terms of you generating an income. I don’t get it when it’s being done on an open and free forum though.
What is it? Are these types trying to convince themselves that they have made a valued selection? Are these individuals just trying to generate traffic for themselves, both good and bad?
I lean towards the latter. I think some posters are so desperate for attention that it matters little if that attention comes by way of flattery or flames. If their play wins then great, they will receive accolades from posters who followed and won as well or those who didn’t follow but recognize and acknowledge the win. If the play loses then the others come out and can flame on the play losing and all the build up by the original poster hyping the play in the first place. In either situation the attention seeking original poster has accomplished what he set out to do, he got noticed.
Many think attention seeking is pathetic and by some accounts it may well be but there are more underlying and troubling reasons for this type of behavior and potentially harming effects to others.
From a psychological standpoint it indicates the person seeking the attention feels lonely and the only real sense of notoriety they can generate for themselves is the attention they create online. This is sad because the person suffering from this doesn’t differentiate the positive and negative attention. To them any attention is better than no attention.
What about visitors to these types of threads? Well for most, they have been around long enough or exposed to various attention seeking posters to take them with a grain of salt but to new posters it can cause real problems. Some of these attention seekers are skilled at their hype. They appear so confident and make such a resounding argument for their selections and they keep telling you over and over again “take my word for it”, “don’t hate a winner, get on this play now”. Naïve and impressionable new posters fall victim to the hype and follow blindly. We all know that following blindly is a bad situation to put yourself and your money in but it happens.
I’m not saying that we are responsible for what others decide to do with their money but I am saying that we all should at least act responsible. There are ways to express how much we like a play without making it sound like others are fools for not trusting you. There are ways to describe how confident you are in a play without encouraging others to jump on board. This gambling thing is difficult enough, why make it even more difficult on the young guys by feeding them a false sense of security just to feed your own needy ego?
We can make SBR an even better and more responsible, more reliable forum if we squash the hype and focus more on just providing the information sans the attention grabbing self promoting BS. Let's put a hault to all the hype.
What I’m referring to is posters overly hyping a play. Not merely hyping but actually encouraging others to make the play themselves.
Personally I’ve never understood this type of posting. Sure, if you are a tout and your income is generated on others buying your advice then it makes sense, at least in terms of you generating an income. I don’t get it when it’s being done on an open and free forum though.
What is it? Are these types trying to convince themselves that they have made a valued selection? Are these individuals just trying to generate traffic for themselves, both good and bad?
I lean towards the latter. I think some posters are so desperate for attention that it matters little if that attention comes by way of flattery or flames. If their play wins then great, they will receive accolades from posters who followed and won as well or those who didn’t follow but recognize and acknowledge the win. If the play loses then the others come out and can flame on the play losing and all the build up by the original poster hyping the play in the first place. In either situation the attention seeking original poster has accomplished what he set out to do, he got noticed.
Many think attention seeking is pathetic and by some accounts it may well be but there are more underlying and troubling reasons for this type of behavior and potentially harming effects to others.
From a psychological standpoint it indicates the person seeking the attention feels lonely and the only real sense of notoriety they can generate for themselves is the attention they create online. This is sad because the person suffering from this doesn’t differentiate the positive and negative attention. To them any attention is better than no attention.
What about visitors to these types of threads? Well for most, they have been around long enough or exposed to various attention seeking posters to take them with a grain of salt but to new posters it can cause real problems. Some of these attention seekers are skilled at their hype. They appear so confident and make such a resounding argument for their selections and they keep telling you over and over again “take my word for it”, “don’t hate a winner, get on this play now”. Naïve and impressionable new posters fall victim to the hype and follow blindly. We all know that following blindly is a bad situation to put yourself and your money in but it happens.
I’m not saying that we are responsible for what others decide to do with their money but I am saying that we all should at least act responsible. There are ways to express how much we like a play without making it sound like others are fools for not trusting you. There are ways to describe how confident you are in a play without encouraging others to jump on board. This gambling thing is difficult enough, why make it even more difficult on the young guys by feeding them a false sense of security just to feed your own needy ego?
We can make SBR an even better and more responsible, more reliable forum if we squash the hype and focus more on just providing the information sans the attention grabbing self promoting BS. Let's put a hault to all the hype.
