Buy the backpack that airlines hate. Stare weirdly at a child athlete. This TV host drank olive oil for a month and absolutely nothing changed. The streets (no actual streets involved) won’t forget (robots can’t forget) Paul Pogba (or something similar). Nineties dance hits. Ruben Amorim fans. Argue with fake fans over a fake photo of fake empty seats. Buy a backpack that hates you because you once thought about buying a backpack, and like a Hungarian grandmother, it will never, ever forget, and you will be punished. Olive oil. Paul Pogba. The seven-step Thai chair workout that turned me from a fat old man into a fat old man in a chair. Basically, feed me, keep feeding me because I have a hole that can never be filled, and this simple tablet can dissolve all the vile, seething parasites inside your body. Buy my backpack. My backpack full of hate.
Ronaldo nears his first major trophy at Al-Nassr, but rivals find it a bit too convenient. Read more.
Regular readers may have noticed a subtle shift in tone here. But it’s time to get real. Think of this as a pitch, an open letter in response to the biggest sport-industry story of the week: the news that Cristiano Ronaldo has lost eight million Instagram followers, casualties of a massive bot purge.
Arguably, these former followers aren’t actually real. But what does “real” mean? What is a “non-sentient code-droid” anyway, beyond just another label? The truth is, those eight million robots are up for grabs. They’re the displaced from the reel world. And I’m offering them a home.
This will be a safe space for robots, tailored to their needs. I’m also willing to believe that eating powders is good for you. I have no specific views or concrete personality, just an elite sense of hyper-rich mega-dad energy (we can work on that). Basically, call me. Let’s build this thing.
More broadly, the Ronaldo robot purge is very disappointing. For the past few years, I’ve watched his follower count climb, seeing it as a measure of human greatness, like the Space Race or the 100m world record—proof that our species can still be great, that our exhausted post-culture still has dreams and peaks to conquer.
But don’t worry too much. Ronaldo still has 664 million followers, making him not just the most followed person, but a genuine evolutionary phenomenon. Right now, one in eight people on Earth follows the instrument of power that is @cristiano. At this rate, it could be only five years before every single human, from newborn babies to dying Tibetan monks, has Cristiano Ronaldo’s thoughts beamed directly into their brain.
This is arguably the most significant state any human has ever reached. He is universal, the most visible public life ever created, from cave paintings through Pharaonic empires to the urge to explore, discover, and colonize. Ronaldo is the closest thing to an omnipresence. The closest, and there’s no other way to put it, to a god.
And yet, he is also incredibly boring, to the point of being a shell with no real presence. What exactly is “Cristiano Ronaldo”? A way of standing. An iconic scowl. Some vague ideas about masculinity and self-control, a set of features and lines that perfectly tap into the urge to click.
With that in mind, I’m now going to say something nobody wants to hear. Please cover the ears of any displaced robots. Throw them a Will Ferrell blooper reel. They’ll eat it up. The truth is, this is also the clearest sign of the basic decline of modern life.
View image in fullscreen: ‘Ronaldo is the closest thing to an omnipresence.’ Photograph: Abdullah Ahmed/Getty Images
It’s also happening very quickly now, while making a very small number of humans very, very rich. All of it is tested, as always, by that sport, out front, like a sandpiper running ahead of the tide.
Sport is always trying to tell you things. One thing the Ronaldo-verse and the upcoming content World Cup are telling us is about the death of words, which are already dancing in the tiniest of spaces.A polar bear on its shrinking patch of ice. This isn’t just another tired complaint about the death of print media, though it is that too. But it matters to all of us. When the World Cup starts, what used to be press boxes will be filled for the first time with FIFA’s own influencers and hired TikTokers, there to talk over the usual, more neutral commentary.
You can see why. What is an influencer? Someone whose only goal is to push a message for personal gain. Not someone who will tell you football is corrupt, or that this is an act of grotesque dictatorial vanity. Sports organizations and football clubs are realizing they don’t need these snarky critics in the room. They can just talk directly to people who already agree with them. And that is objectively a bad thing.
Okay, there is one good thing about it. Social media has lowered the barriers to entry. Talented people who never had a chance before can now get out there and find a voice. Diversity of views and backgrounds is happening, like it or not.
Otherwise, anyone who tells you the shift to content slop is a good thing is either addicted or making money from it. We don’t have long. Soon it will be time to go back to generic angry bald men wanting to punch Mikel Arteta. But quickly, this is bad because it destroys meaning and turns it into noise. It’s bad because it concentrates power in the hands of a very small group.
It’s bad because it makes a worse product. What is it like to watch a reel? You find yourself dropped into a zone of mindless consumption, a direct line from machine-picked brain-shout to your deepest feelings. You’re basically gouging out your own eyeballs with a rusty needle made entirely of rage, greed, and old Katy Perry clips.
It is also fundamentally compromised. You think journalism is corrupt? The things replacing it are all inter-owned and overlapping, already rummaging around in your brain, bouncing pre-cooked messages from one platform to another. Not to mention burping out AI summaries of scraped search information to kill the news sources that actually found it. We will take your work so nobody needs your work. And while you’re here, buy my backpack full of hate.
At the same time, reel life will destroy or mutate everything it touches. Never mind civil discourse or democracy. More simply—and here it comes again, dancing at the front of the parade—it is eating sport. Cricket’s Indian Premier League will have to adapt now to figures released this week showing dramatic declines in sponsorship and TV viewership.
This is happening, its analysts say, not because content culture has created a boring product. But because young people just like reels, because they need more, not less, of this—ever tinier bits. So get ready for T-whatever, for louder and brighter, for a deepfake Virat Kohli endlessly hitting the same six into the face of a deliriously weeping crowd-style humo-bot.
Did anyone ask for this? Does it feel good? Does it have any qualities? The standard response is that young people want it because they have the dreaded short attention span. But young people didn’t make this. Adults made it and are firing it into their faces. It’s like forcing cigarettes into people’s mouths, then shrugging and saying, hey, they just want cigarettes. Give them only Goethe and spinach and guess what? They’ll want that instead.
For now, anyone who has failed to resist this decay in some way is complicit, and that includes us, the consumers. Legacy media is usually a negative term. But again, this is the denigration of words, because legacy can also be a good thing. It’s what you pass on—connection and culture for those who come next. And what we are passing on right now is brainrot, a sludge that benefits only those who control it.The final thing reel culture destroys is the people who create it for a living. It’s an unstable, harsh way to live—short-term, constantly selling yourself, spending your life shouting into the void, hoping for an echo. But hey, Neymar slapped someone. Cristiano shared his morning routine (my cold plunge, my quality time with my family). He’s trying to win back those numbers. But for now, the offer still stands. Come to me, wandering bots. Gather under my wings. The future—and the present—is yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the articles core themes written in a natural conversational tone
1 What is the Ronaldoverse
Its a term for the massive overwhelming amount of online contentespecially lowquality repetitive videos and poststhat surrounds Cristiano Ronaldo Its not just about his football its about his lifestyle reactions and brand
2 Is the article saying Ronaldo himself is bad for sports
No The article criticizes the content and the adults who create and profit from it It argues they are flooding sports with shallow clickbait material not that Ronaldo is a bad player
3 Who are the adults being blamed
This refers to the people who should know better major sports media outlets social media platforms marketing executives and even some journalists They prioritize viral loweffort content over real sports analysis or journalism
4 What does lowquality content look like in this context
Think of endless compilations of Ronaldo staring sighing or celebrating react videos to his every Instagram post or articles with huge headlines about minor nonfootball events in his life Its content designed for clicks not for insight
5 Why is this considered a problem for sports
The argument is that it drowns out genuine sports coverage analysis and the stories of other athletes It turns sports into a shallow entertainment product where the narrative is controlled by viral moments and brand deals not the actual game
6 Is this just a problem with Ronaldo or does it happen with other stars
It happens with other superstars but the article suggests the Ronaldoverse is a particularly extreme example of this phenomenon due to his massive social media following and carefully managed brand
7 Whats an example of adults being responsible for this
A major sports network dedicating 10 minutes of a 30minute show to a Ronaldo body language breakdown after a game instead of discussing tactics or other matches Or a brand paying for a documentary thats basically a long advertisement
