NY Mets owner Steve Cohen has lost his Twitter mojo
Steve Cohen is one of the most popular baseball men on Twitter this year. The New York Mets owner is certainly an interesting character. Not quite as diabolical as some make him out to believe, his presence on social media does do this: it gets people talking.
Cohen’s Twitter feed isn’t full of home runs. While he can occasionally knock one out of the park, if we examine his tweets over the last few weeks, there are plenty of generic and bland 240 or fewer characters sent out.
However, mixed in are some memorable jabs. Cohen is careful not to cross the line, but he is unafraid to attack general groups—mostly pessimistic Mets fans he has called naysayers.
For the most part, however, Cohen’s Twitter game has been an absolute bore. Has he changed or has the novelty of a billionaire owner on social media simply worn out?
Mets owner Steve Cohen isn’t fun on Twitter anymore
The GameStop fiasco forced Cohen to go into hiding temporarily from the public—at least on social media. The funny thing about a platform like Twitter is that everyone can easily attack you but not really do any damage unless you let them. Remember the good old days when a bully had to find your house to cause trouble? Those days are no more. Now they can just find you online and try to hurt your ego.
Cohen was smart to step away from Twitter when he did. He’s not just a baseball owner in the public. As a hedge fund owner with a known past, scrutiny would come easily.
There’s a certain charm about Cohen tweeting and talking Mets baseball. Viewed in some ways as the “people’s owner,” he is anything but a representation of the common person. By all accounts, he’s a tough businessman and highly demanding of his employees. Great in the world he works in, it doesn’t always work on Twitter.
I categorize anything Cohen puts on social media as unnecessary or condescending. There’s little in between. He either gives us a “who cares?” generic tweet about the Mets or something a little too cocky and arrogant.
Maybe it was always this way with Cohen on Twitter. Before the season began, there was nothing to criticize the Mets about. There was nothing but good vibes around Cohen, the team, and the upcoming season.
Then the team began to lose games after not doing much to improve the roster at the trade deadline. Prior to this, in a summer rainout, Cohen assured fans on Twitter that the game would be played. It never was and fans wasted their night sitting in the rain at Citi Field.
It’s not Cohen’s job to accurately predict the weather. With some as influential as him, it’s probably best to avoid any kind of promises out of your control.
Cohen might be influential but he is far from an online influencer. His social media game isn’t the smoothest. Trying to “educate” upset Mets fans and trolling them with comments about trades is a completely unnecessary reaction. He’s going to do what he wants to do, though. But that’s what has always made him so great. Cohen has no care in the world because of his wealth. He can do whatever he wants.
This weekend, Cohen may have had his two biggest swings and misses. On Friday, taking the high road hoping for better results from his club, he tweeted this:
As if that wasn’t a freezing cold take enough, this is what came out shortly before the start of Sunday’s two-hit performance from the Mets:
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Every rose has its thorns. Every Twitter feed has its duds. Cohen, whose presence on Twitter originally mesmerized us, no longer has the same flare he once did nor the translation to results on the field; if it ever did. Maybe this will change when he fires out the tweet every fan is waiting for: “We did it! World Champions.”