“What I can’t understand is why LeBron James, guarded by a rookie, would settle for about as difficult a last-sec shot as he could take???”
Skip Bayless, Fox Sports 1
Can you be TOO unlikeable as a media personality or digital self-marketer?
Sitting there, as a normal person, with a normal perspective, your initial response to such as question is likely “yes, I wouldn’t watch someone I don’t like”. But history shows us that – as an audience – we love to hate… we love an antagonist.
When we meet somebody face to face and decide, for whatever reason, that we have an aversion towards such a person, our succeeding behaviour is to avoid the person because we understand why we don’t particularly like them. These reasons were unearthed in our initial interaction.
But when it comes to media personalities, we never actually meet them, and therefore never have the opportunity to tangibly experience their human traits. Because our social cognition is founded on principals of interpersonal interactions, we tend to be more intrigued by media figures who we dislike as opposed to being disinclined towards them because we are subliminally fascinated by the persona who can affect us, yet remain unaffected by us.
U.S. sports reporter Skip Bayless has quite literally carve a career from rebuking LeBron James, who is popularly considered a “Mount Rushmore” athlete (one of the greatest). After hitting a deliberate and calculated game-winning shot, Bayless slammed James because the made shot was “too difficult”. You’re right, it makes no sense. The better James plays, the more Bayless criticises. Why? Because people hate him for it, but they keep watching. Bayless’ YouTube views have grown exponentially since his recent ‘villainization’.
Our “attention seeking” generation responds to attention seekers, particularly the ones we don’t like, and digital promoters are taking full advantage.
Still don’t believe that we love villains? Rotten tomatoes ranked Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy: no.1 was The Dark Knight Rises. Same director and lead as the other two. Why was it unanimously the best? It co-stars the greatest villain of them all: Joker.
Like the Joker, Bayless stays mocked. He just can’t hear you over his $4m signing bonus.
An Amateur's Perspective 