Don't be biased by the hate machine

This is not a column on Dan Wilson’s performance as the Mariners manager.

It will seem like that, however, because I will be talking about the increasingly furious reviews that Mariners fans have been posting on the Internet in general and Twitter in particular.

This piece is not about the validity of those opinions.

It’s about the way Twitter is distorting our perception of reality even more than we already knew. This is true even if you, personally, don’t use the platform.

Dan Wilson is going to serve as a case study on the matter.

On Friday, after the Mariners were dragged 7-0 in their return from the All-Star break, Corbin Smith posted this observation:

Corbin covers the Seahawks for the Emerald City Spectrum, a digital publication he started. Corbin provides great coverage, and I admire what he’s built in his own publication.

(Sound of glass shattering followed by heavy guitar)

Is that Groz’s music?

Based strictly on what I’ve seen on Twitter, I don’t disagree with either Corbin or the Groz.

It’s not just the rate of complaints on Wilson’s decision-making, but the intensity. A number of Mariner fans, including some I really like with significant followings, are absolutely done with Wilson.

This is the point where a column like this generally veers into a discussion about whether the vitriol is warranted.

But like I said, this column is not actually about Wilson’s performance as manager. If you insist on knowing my thoughts about the Mariners manager, you can click here.

This column, however, is about the perception of Wilson’s performance. More specifically, it’s about the perception of just how angry the collective fan base is deemed to be at Wilson.

Because when I first read Corbin’s Tweet, I thought back to a column that Larry Stone wrote about the level of fan dissatisfaction with a specific Mariners team.

It was 2023. I know because I went and looked up the column:

The column included a particularly poignant observation from Stone, who is as reasonable and measured a journalist as I have ever worked with:

Like Corbin’s Tweet, I agreed with Stone’s sentiment. That is what I saw and heard that year.

I also spend a lot of time on Twitter. This is not just a personal problem; it’s a professional problem. Journalists and media members are disproportionately represented on that platform.

It is a tool for keeping abreast of what’s happening and interacting with colleagues, sources and the audience.

Speaking from my own experience, I’ve also used Twitter as a reference point for how fans are feeling about a particular subject.

What are they talking about? Who’s getting blamed?

Now, it is entirely possible that over the past five years the Mariners have had a team and a manager that have inspired a level of unprecedented vitriol within the fan base. Perhaps being the only team never to have reached the World Series has put Mariners fans on the collective edge of losing their ever-loving minds.

But the Mariners have been losing an awful long time. They needed 14 seasons to post a winning record. They had a playoff drought that was a couple months away from being of age to legally drink liquor.

I would like to introduce the possibility that it’s not that the level of anger among Mariners fans has reached unprecedented proportions, but the amount of anger we’re being funneled that is unprecedented.

Now I’m talking about Twitter.

What if a platform that media members use at a disproportionate rate is making the anger more audible, perhaps even amplifying it?¹

Because we absolutely know that is what has happened on Twitter.

First, the way people communicate on the platform has changed dramatically. People sound meaner. Some of this is performative. Some of this is because disagreement so quickly becomes bloodsport on that platform.

Second, and even more importantly, the way the website itself functions has changed dramatically in the past two years.

This relates to the mechanics of a Twitter feed, which is the window where you see updates. Your feed used to be composed of posts and RTs from people you followed. These posts were displayed in chronological order with the most recent appearing toward the top.

This is no longer how the feed works.

The platform – or more precisely its algorithm – plays a larger part in determining which posts appear at the top of your feed. The most recent posts are no longer prioritized; instead, posts that have generated reactions are prioritized.

Additionally, there’s now a “For You” tab:

If clicked, your feed will include posts from people you don’t follow. A euphemistic description is that you’re allowing the platform to show you content it believes will align with your interest. A more realistic description is that it will show you posts that will pull you down whatever particular rabbit hole you’ve been sniffing at.

If you don’t believe me, click it on “For you.” Then search “Odyssey” and click on a couple of the Tweets you see. Refresh your feed. You’ll start seeing posts with differing opinions of the movie as well as impassioned arguments regarding the casting of two actors who appear on screen for less than 10 minutes of the movie’s 3-hour run time.²

What’s super fun about the “For you” tab is that even if you select the “Following” tab for your feed, Twitter will periodically kick it back over to “For you” until you notice that you’re mainlining hot takes.

In both cases, the most recent posts are no longer prioritized in your feed. Rather, it’s the engagement that post triggered that determines what appears at the top of your feed.

This means that if you’re on Twitter — as we’ve established journalists predominantly are — your diet of posts is increasingly based upon what that platform’s research – its algorithm, if you prefer that term -- believes you will interact with.

Anger is a powerful ingredient. It exerts a higher influence over people online than any other emotion.

If Twitter is prioritizing engagement in the posts it promotes, it is in effect prioritizing anger.

This is not necessarily a problem. It does, however, create an issue if you use what you’re seeing on Twitter as a reference point to make comparisons over time.

Just because you’re seeing more of the angry stuff now doesn’t mean that people, on average, are actually angrier about this particular subject.

Perhaps that’s because Mariners fans are actually angrier at Wilson than they’ve been about any other manager.

Or perhaps it's because Twitter has become better at amplifying the angriest opinions. After all, those are the types of Tweets that spur reaction.

As is obvious by this point, I believe the latter to be the case.

I wouldn’t say Wilson is particularly popular right now among Mariners fans. No one on that team is given the way this season has skidded sideways.

I think some Mariners fans are especially unhappy with Wilson — not without reason I might add — but diagnosing that as a uniquely vilified is to mistake what’s trending on Twitter with what is happening in the actual world.

Twitter isn’t indicative of the real world, Increasingly, I’m convinced that what you’re seeing on Twitter is not even indicative of Twitter.

You’re just seeing the hottest takes.