this article from The Athletic (which does not resonate with me at all but I get it) illustrates how important social media etc is to these kids these days
Georgetown needs to step up. Our official basketball instagram is rehashing the best Georgetown teams ever and Ewing doesn't post. Nor does Orr.
Article credit to Brendan Quinn:
EDIT: had to post in 3 parts due to the character limit from Rivals
Walking blindly into the land of college basketball’s recruiting edits
By Brendan Quinn 4h ago
6
It’s mid-afternoon on a Wednesday in October inside the Chick-fil-A on the campus of the University of Alabama Huntsville. I’ve come here to make sense of something I do not understand.
There’s a subculture out there, one fueled by image, ego, information and empty relationships. It is a central vein in the world of college basketball recruiting, but exists without an ounce of oversight. In many ways, it’s a baptism of branding that marks the conversion of a modern athlete to commodity. In 2020, you are not a big-time recruit until your head is superimposed overtop a jersey you’ve never before worn. It’s the definition of an alternate reality and, when it comes to prep hoops, one person stands at the center of this counterfeit universe.
And here he is, sitting in front of me, crushing a chicken sandwich, trying to explain what the hell this is all about.
Joe Tipton is a 21-year-old junior at Alabama Huntsville. None of the students walking around this student union seem to know or care who he is. Here, Joe Tipton is another guy hunched over the table having lunch.
Online? That’s where Joe Tipton is the omnipresent (and, often times, seemingly, omnipotent) Tipton Edits, a provider and proprietor of aptly names “edits” on Instagram and Twitter. What’s an edit? If you dabble in social media, and you follow college sports, you’ve seen mocked up graphic designs of high school recruits in college uniforms or surrounded by an array of logos. That is an edit. They’re everywhere now, as commonplace in the recruiting process as official visits and final lists of suitors.
In this world — not here, at lunch, but out there, on social media — Tipton is something of a pioneer. He didn’t invent this game, but he helped popularize it and grew his designs into an influential personal brand. This was way back when, he says. “Many, many years ago … oh, I dunno … like … six years ago.” Since then Tipton has watched what was an internet niche break into the mainstream and become an industry in and of itself. College athletic departments have long used graphic designers to lure recruits. Only in recent years, though, have they come to include edits of players donning the school uniform.
Tipton shakes his head. Can’t believe it. There are a lot of things he still can’t quite believe, like why some of the best recruits in the country regularly trust him with information reporters crawl over each other to track down and fans might kill for.
“I still don’t really get how this is a thing,” Tipton says.
Tipton averages more than eight hours of time on his phone per day. (Brendan Quinn / The Athletic)
Information. This is what’s at the center of all this. Tipton is trusted, thus he gets information. As he has gotten bigger, the information has gotten better. The bigger the names, the bigger the audience. The bigger the audience, the bigger his brand. As we speak, Tipton is in touch with a five-star prospect who has told Tipton where he’s going to school but still isn’t scheduled to announce his decision for another two or three weeks. Later on this night, he’ll be hit up to create an edit for another recruit who wants to make his college commitment in real time.
This is just another day. No different than the last one. No different than tomorrow. As it stands, Tipton has more than 120,000 followers on Instagram and another 12,700 on Twitter. He’s turned his Instagram feed into an information mill large enough that he commissions out some of the design work. He averages well over eight hours of screen time per day on his phone. Even more in the midst of the national lock down. “Like 10 or 12,” he said by phone last week. This is what it takes to exist in this world, for better or worse. He doesn’t know where this is going, but he knows his neck hurts.
The process of watching Joe Tipton create an edit is like watching an eraser illustrate a picture. He unlocks his phone and dives into a folder of design applications. Photoshop. PicsArt. Leonardo. Superimpose X. He pulls a picture from Google Images and chooses an app. In one moment, a player is in one jersey. The next moment, he’s in a different one. Then the image is dressed up with some design elements. Click. Save. Done.
Last week, Duke transfer Alex O’Connell was among the players who reached out. He revealed in a text message he was heading to Creighton next season and asked Tipton for an assist. Tipton asked when he needed it by. “Anytime tomorrow would be straight,” O’Connell replied. “Is that possible?”
“Yes, that’ll work,” Tipton sent back.
Just like that. Voila.
With an assist from Tipton, O’Connell announced his new school on Instagram.
Tipton offers his services for free to high-profile transfers and top-flight recruits. The publicity is the tradeoff. Most of his edits include a TIPTON EDITS logo. A five-star prospect using Tipton’s image drives new followers to his Instagram page. That’s the value. Followers are currency. There are heaps of designers out there, all with unique watermarks, creating images of these players, hoping they get shared and seen.
Georgetown needs to step up. Our official basketball instagram is rehashing the best Georgetown teams ever and Ewing doesn't post. Nor does Orr.
Article credit to Brendan Quinn:
EDIT: had to post in 3 parts due to the character limit from Rivals
Walking blindly into the land of college basketball’s recruiting edits
By Brendan Quinn 4h ago
It’s mid-afternoon on a Wednesday in October inside the Chick-fil-A on the campus of the University of Alabama Huntsville. I’ve come here to make sense of something I do not understand.
There’s a subculture out there, one fueled by image, ego, information and empty relationships. It is a central vein in the world of college basketball recruiting, but exists without an ounce of oversight. In many ways, it’s a baptism of branding that marks the conversion of a modern athlete to commodity. In 2020, you are not a big-time recruit until your head is superimposed overtop a jersey you’ve never before worn. It’s the definition of an alternate reality and, when it comes to prep hoops, one person stands at the center of this counterfeit universe.
And here he is, sitting in front of me, crushing a chicken sandwich, trying to explain what the hell this is all about.
Joe Tipton is a 21-year-old junior at Alabama Huntsville. None of the students walking around this student union seem to know or care who he is. Here, Joe Tipton is another guy hunched over the table having lunch.
Online? That’s where Joe Tipton is the omnipresent (and, often times, seemingly, omnipotent) Tipton Edits, a provider and proprietor of aptly names “edits” on Instagram and Twitter. What’s an edit? If you dabble in social media, and you follow college sports, you’ve seen mocked up graphic designs of high school recruits in college uniforms or surrounded by an array of logos. That is an edit. They’re everywhere now, as commonplace in the recruiting process as official visits and final lists of suitors.
In this world — not here, at lunch, but out there, on social media — Tipton is something of a pioneer. He didn’t invent this game, but he helped popularize it and grew his designs into an influential personal brand. This was way back when, he says. “Many, many years ago … oh, I dunno … like … six years ago.” Since then Tipton has watched what was an internet niche break into the mainstream and become an industry in and of itself. College athletic departments have long used graphic designers to lure recruits. Only in recent years, though, have they come to include edits of players donning the school uniform.
Tipton shakes his head. Can’t believe it. There are a lot of things he still can’t quite believe, like why some of the best recruits in the country regularly trust him with information reporters crawl over each other to track down and fans might kill for.
“I still don’t really get how this is a thing,” Tipton says.
Tipton averages more than eight hours of time on his phone per day. (Brendan Quinn / The Athletic)
Information. This is what’s at the center of all this. Tipton is trusted, thus he gets information. As he has gotten bigger, the information has gotten better. The bigger the names, the bigger the audience. The bigger the audience, the bigger his brand. As we speak, Tipton is in touch with a five-star prospect who has told Tipton where he’s going to school but still isn’t scheduled to announce his decision for another two or three weeks. Later on this night, he’ll be hit up to create an edit for another recruit who wants to make his college commitment in real time.
This is just another day. No different than the last one. No different than tomorrow. As it stands, Tipton has more than 120,000 followers on Instagram and another 12,700 on Twitter. He’s turned his Instagram feed into an information mill large enough that he commissions out some of the design work. He averages well over eight hours of screen time per day on his phone. Even more in the midst of the national lock down. “Like 10 or 12,” he said by phone last week. This is what it takes to exist in this world, for better or worse. He doesn’t know where this is going, but he knows his neck hurts.
The process of watching Joe Tipton create an edit is like watching an eraser illustrate a picture. He unlocks his phone and dives into a folder of design applications. Photoshop. PicsArt. Leonardo. Superimpose X. He pulls a picture from Google Images and chooses an app. In one moment, a player is in one jersey. The next moment, he’s in a different one. Then the image is dressed up with some design elements. Click. Save. Done.
Last week, Duke transfer Alex O’Connell was among the players who reached out. He revealed in a text message he was heading to Creighton next season and asked Tipton for an assist. Tipton asked when he needed it by. “Anytime tomorrow would be straight,” O’Connell replied. “Is that possible?”
“Yes, that’ll work,” Tipton sent back.
Just like that. Voila.
With an assist from Tipton, O’Connell announced his new school on Instagram.
Tipton offers his services for free to high-profile transfers and top-flight recruits. The publicity is the tradeoff. Most of his edits include a TIPTON EDITS logo. A five-star prospect using Tipton’s image drives new followers to his Instagram page. That’s the value. Followers are currency. There are heaps of designers out there, all with unique watermarks, creating images of these players, hoping they get shared and seen.
