Matt Hardy on tribalism in wrestling: “People get so caught up in these echo chambers of their own stuff”
While speaking on his podcast, TNA Wrestling star Matt Hardy addressed the subject of tribalism in wrestling…
“I think it is very high, yeah. I don’t think this is a normal societal, tribalistic thing, you know what I mean? I don’t think this is normal for pro wrestling. I do think it’s high.
I’ve said this before, in a Matt Fact, about how I think social media may become an overall net negative. People get so caught up in these echo chambers of their own stuff, and then they buy into it, and they believe it.
Social media has taken on this insane life of its own, and in pro wrestling it has done that as well.
The people who live and die by ‘WWE is the devil, it’s terrible,’ or that ‘AEW is going to be out of business and they suck and they’re the worst’—they hear this from other people who agree with it, and then they just build up each other’s confidence and continue to go at it. Then these forces battle.
In a lot of ways, that’s what’s happening in society and America too, you know what I mean? Just to keep people at each other’s throats. It’s a problem for a lot of things—this conflict of opinion.
What happened to civility? What happened to when someone could just throw out an opinion and you go, ‘Well, I don’t agree with you. My opinion is this, but okay—you’re entitled to your opinion.'”