J.J. Watt on social media: 'Read each tweet about 95 times' before sending
Texans defensive end J.J. Watt has really good social media advice for kids (and everyone): 'Read each tweet about 95 times before you send it.'
By
Will Brinson
•
2 min read
J.J. Watt was recently one of the speakers/celeb-athlete attendees at the Gatorade Athlete of the Year awards and the Texans defensive end was doling out advice for young athletes.
Specifically, he imparted some wisdom about social media during an interview with MaxPreps.
"Read each tweet about 95 times before you send it. Look at every Instagram post about 95 times before you send it," Watt said. "A reputation takes years and years and years to build and it takes one press of a button to ruin it. Don't let that happen to you. You've done so much work, you've put in so much effort. Don't let one moment ruin your entire life because you wanted to be funny or you were mad or because you had a mood.
"If you use it properly you can use it unbelievably. You can interact with your fans and share with the world what you're doing. Just be smart about it."
This isn't just great advice for high-school students. It's great advice for EVERYONE.
Say the wrong thing on social media and you're suddenly subject to online shaming and the world won't stop until you're sufficiently ruined. This is the case even with defensible opinions that people don't like.
Five years ago you could typically fire out anything you wanted on social media and it would go largely ignored.
Not so today. Watt's spot on with his social advice for kids.
He also had some solid motivational advice as well.
"What I told them was, don't ever be satisfied. Tonight's a great night. It's unbelievable what you've accomplished and you should enjoy that," Watt said. "But don't let tonight be the highlight of your career. Go out there every single day and try to be even better, push yourself even further. You have such a high starting point if you're willing to push yourself, the things you can accomplish are incredible."
And a couple more items from the MaxPreps interview, which you can watch in full below:
On being close with high school friends: "Every year I take 10 of my best friends from high school on a trip. That's kind of my way for saying thanks to them for being so loyal, for keeping me honest and for just being great friends throughout this craziness."
On what he remembers from high school: "I don't remind being as tall as that basketball player, or as big as that baseball guy or as fast as that little football player. What I remember most about high school are the memories I created with my friends."
