Joe Buck has joined Twitter and it was a pretty eventful first day for @buck with just above 15,000 followers and 22 tweets. I am guessing by the time you read this, both those numbers will be a lot higher.

What struck me is that unlike other media personalities who slowly ramp up their usage and usually use their account in a very vanilla way, Buck surprisingly came out of the gate with a fury you wouldn’t expect from the often beleaguered Fox announcer.

The first thing that caught my eye was Buck’s twitter bio and picture shown below.

No fluffy bio or professional photo of Buck in a suit and wearing makeup. Instead we get more or less an unshaven cell phone picture of Buck and a bio that punches back at year of vocal criticism (a lot of which comes from us at times).

Buck’s 22 tweets are also pretty saucy. A tweet about Artie Lange, poking fun of Albert Pujols media overkill, admitting his hair is going grey, and poking fun of how people consider his announcing style can be a bit dry…

bucktweet

While this probably won’t sway the many who dislike Buck as Fox’s front man, it definitely humanizes a guy who has long been considered a bore in terms of offering up emotion and personality in his work.

For quite a while, Buck has been the pinata he references in his bio and he’s never really had an outlet to dish it back out. Whether it’s us, Justin Timberlake, or Artie Lange, you have to have some level of sympathy for a guy who gets it from all angles. He’s been the lead guy for Fox forever and often bemoaned by fans and media pundits alike. It’s probably healthy for him to have an avenue to connect with fans and have a back channel where he can be a bit more casual and personal in what he says.

Upon seeing Buck’s account I thought of Nicolas Cage’s character in The Weather Man. Cage’s character is a media personality transitioning from local to national prominence that nobody seems to like. In fact, people throw food and drinks at him with some level of regularity. He lives in the shadow of his famous father and being an independent movie, obviously he’s emotionally dead inside and suffering a midlife crisis before having an epiphany that he needs to LIVE a bit.

Below is the trailer, and by no means in this endorsement of Nicolas Cage… who probably should join Twitter too.

About Ben Koo

Owner and editor of @AwfulAnnouncing. Recovering Silicon Valley startup guy. Fan of Buckeyes, A's, dogs, naps, tacos. and the old AOL dialup sounds

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