Once known for dunking on her critics and foul-mouthed haters on X, ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes is one of the most popular sports media personalities to make the jump from the Elon Musk-owned social media platform to rival Bluesky this month.
In an appearance on Pablo Torre Finds Out released Friday, Kimes explained why she flipped. She also discussed the contention among people in politics and media that fleeing X for Bluesky could further create fractures by turning X into a right-wing echo chamber and Bluesky into a left-wing echo chamber.
Kimes does not see Bluesky as an echo chamber, but instead a place where she can exist without being chased down constantly by nasty, personal comments and clickbait nonsense.
“For the most part, I don’t read the things that people say to me on (X), because if I did, I have recognized that being called ‘DEI’ 30 times a day is not great for my mental health,” Kimes said. “The replies that are prioritized and elevated are either bots, s***ty engagement farmers, or or in many cases the most foul comments possible … you can pay for the opportunity to be the worst person in the world and walk up to somebody with a giant megaphone.”
As an Asian-American woman at the worldwide leader in sports covering a male-dominated sport with an audience in more socially conservative areas of the U.S., Kimes likely has a far different experience on X than someone like U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips or sports media critic Ethan Sherwood Strauss, who have both come out vocally against the #Xodus happening since Musk helped Donald Trump win the presidential election.
So Kimes doesn’t see X as a place for balanced viewpoints or hearing from others who disagree with her, but simply a place to be personally attacked.
“(X) is not a difference of ideas, it is someone literally saying toxic, foul things to me,” Kimes said. “We are conflating egregious racism and misogyny with diversity of thought, or with reasonable opinion and disagreements.”
And while Kimes certainly espouses liberal political views, as seen in the dust-up over her support for the rhetoric of vice presidential nominee Tim Walz earlier this year, she insists her decision to move to Bluesky wasn’t driven by how she votes.
“So much of the discussion about these two platforms and the exodus and what people are looking for and echo chambers, is about politics,” Kimes added. “It’s not political at all … (it) is the engagement farming, (it) is that people are now using it to make money in the lowest ways. It is all either rage bait, engagement bait, misinformation. It’s the lowest common denominator.”
It is useful to hear from Kimes on this inflection point in sports social media. If Bluesky does remain prominent as a platform going forward, its users are at least being more direct about why they are going there. Compare that to early social media, an era in which people signed up simply because platforms sprouted up.
Certainly, Kimes has documented the mountains of vitriol she faces online plenty. If she is exhausted by dealing with it and wants to try something new, who could blame her?
Others are flocking to Bluesky for partisan reasons, however. The conversation around the rhetoric on X versus Bluesky is constant on the latter app. Even if each new user joins Bluesky with their own individual intentions and hopes for the platform, it does appear to be building into a liberal social media alternative.
It may not be long before Bluesky is a real alternative to X, creating even more distance between the realities and conversations between each side of the political spectrum — in sports, politics, media and beyond.
[Pablo Torre Finds Out on YouTube]
