Social media and hooliganism

Social media is seeming to be taking over the world in many way entertainment, sports, politics, etc.  Any and everything has made its way to social media, and hooliganism is no exception.  Hooliganism has started to trend towards social media because the old ways of hooliganism are extremely frowned upon.  The old ways of violence, fights, and riots have since died down and those extreme football (soccer) fans have since taken to social media. 

Social media is now seen as an outlet, because the old ways are seen as an embarrassment.  Social media is a great way to public shame individuals of any sport, business, etc.  Social media sites like twitter tend to give "a voice to the voiceless, both a wonderful and damaging consequence" (Brosnan, 2015).  When it comes to sports football fans are the most likely to "troll and "banter" via social media by mocking, condemning, and harassing football fans.  It's viewed as a source of amusement, an outlet, and a distraction which it seems is what football fans wanted all along when resorting to hooliganism. 

In 2013-2014 50% of all complaints about football/soccer related hate crimes were related to social media abuse (Brosnan, 2015).  Mario Balotelli (a professional soccer player) received 8,000 abusive tweets, 4,000 of which were racist related during the 2014 season (Brosnan, 2015).  Social media hooliganism has become such an issue that organizations are now hiring full time employees to take action against offensive posts/tweets.  Physically hooliganism may have been taken out of sports but the mental aspect is still present.