Michael Phelps and the media effect

I go back and forth on this Michael Phelps pot story. One, I think the fact that all the media reports were a direct cause of the sponsors dropping out. I don’t think Kellogg was planning on tossing him within a few days of the photos coming out (rather, perhaps quietly not using him in the next campaign), but, when there’s an avalanche of “what companies who ‘value their image’ will drop Phelps” articles, they pulled the trigger. This is a particularly interesting story because it combines the question of legality of marijuana, the problems with privacy on the internet, sports and the almighty dollar.

I’m sure I could just look this up on the internet, but I never quite understand why it’s okay for someone to get photographed smoking weed, or go on Letterman and talk about smoking weed all the time, or how every interview with Lil’ Wayne mentions him smoking weed continuously throughout, and nobody ever gets prosecuted or questioned for that. Why are you allowed to admit breaking the law (if it’s weed, obviously you can’t go on Conan and be like “I killed somebody!”) on air. I think it has to do with the fact that marijuana is one of those “don’t get caught and you’re okay” laws. But anyway, he’s 23. He’s a kid months away from his competition and he’s at a party. GOD FORBID he uses weed every once in a while. He clearly isn’t a heavy smoker considering his athletic achievements. He owned up for it right away.

It’s also running into the equally fun topic of privacy in the facebook era. I haven’t cleaned up my facebook profile much and am friends with many of my coworkers and boss now that I’m in my first “real” office post-college job. I try to remove any photos where it looks like I’m having TOO much “fun”, but besides that, I didn’t try to change my profile information to make me look more professional (of course, it’s not like I ever had “Pineapple Express” in as a favorite movie, so maybe it’s me). I don’t think this is an area that’s going to be a problem long-term. Older people are going to have to remember back to their twenties and realize they were doing the EXACT same things (and, considering a lot of people’s bosses were coming up in the seventies, they were probably doing WORSE things, but there weren’t digital cameras and facebook to make it easy for everyone and their mom, literally, to know about them).

Anyway, like many of my posts, this doesn’t have a central theme. My final thought on this is that I am pleased how many editorial pieces have come out and said “Stop with this crap… he’s 23, this is minor, we need to sort out marijuana legislation across the country and settle this”. Hopefully all this stupidity about Phelps will help move us forward. There’s a lot more significant things to focus on.