Mystery is making a comeback.
My dad was a fan of the Lakers / Celtics rivalry in the 80’s. As a newcomer to the sport at the time, he was naturally drawn to the ‘Showtime’ Lakers.
But his interest was confined to the court.
I had a similar experience with the Bulls’ second three-peat from 96–99. My friends and I would be mesmerized by Jordan, try to emulate his movies on the court or randomly in the hallways.
Our experience was entirely confined to what happened on the court.
Nowadays, I get to watch Lebron, arguably the most famous basketball super-duper-star dominate the court. But I also see him on Instagram stories, vibing to whatever’s on his playlist. I get to see him be ‘Taco Tuesday’ dad at home. I get to see him on a highly produced TV show (streamed online) discussing issues of the day with a cross section of athletes, entertainers and even politicians.
Unlike Magic or Michael, with Lebron it’s more than an athlete.
Some call it the ‘player-empowerment’ era.
I see it as a product of our social-media-mega-corp driven society. Sometimes, I think it’s a bit much. Over exposure. Maybe some parts of your life don’t need to be shared.
From the mid-2000’s, accessibility has gained much more social currency than mystery. But change is coming. People are starting to care about privacy. We want our data encrypted. We wonder how our data is harvested to fuel the surveillance economy.
People tend to think privacy is who can access our data. But it’s also about who we choose to share with. With privacy-enhancing and self-sovereign technologies continuing to explode, future public figures will appreciate that their doesn’t have to be private or public, but both, in varying degrees.
Who you share with becomes how much you want to share and with whom.
An antidote to over exposure, mystery is making a comeback.
