Social Media and Wrestling: How Times Have Changed

With the rise of Twitter, Facebook, and countless other social media services, change in social media has lead to change in the wrestling world.  Countless WWE wrestlers, past and present, have followed suit with these services, and the WWE itself has fully embraced them (If you've watched WWE programming in the last few years or so, Michael Cole will make this known for you). Through this, feuds and storylines are no longer solely seen on television, but are spilt over on the internet as well.

In the business sense, this has been a tremendous way for WWE to generate more interest in their product.  WWE frequently features some of the most popular trending topics, especially during their television programming and pay-per-views.

In an old-school wrestling sense, too much social media emphasis seems to take away from the magic and mystique of professional wrestling (Thankfully, as far as I know, The Undertaker does not have a twitter).   Sure the idea of kayfabe (the portrayal of events within the industry as "real" or "true") has already been vastly tarnished, but you would think that the WWE would try to maintain at least some sense of realism.  When seeing the face-heel interaction on Twitter, the 12-year-old wrestling fan is ripped of the magical aspect of wrestling.  Of course one day they will find out that what they see on television is "fake", but I'm sure they'd rather have figured that out on their own, rather than finding out by seeing Tweeted pics of their favorite hero hanging out with their most hated villain.

At the end of the day, money is the key for WWE, and if it means gaining more worldwide publicity, they are more than willing to sacrifice any amount of mystique that wrestling still has.