Football fans love to express themselves and social media is their most favoured place for expression. This has created a platform for individuals who have garnered a huge following on different platforms through their expressions and opinions on their clubs and players. And among the huge number of such personalities, Mark Goldbridge is one of the most prominent names.
The Manchester United fan, who uses his YouTube channel The United Stand, has been one of the most prominent media personalities among football fans. While his commentary on the Red Devils made him famous, his hot takes and questionable antics have kept him popular in the sphere. Recently, one such action has brought him back to the discussions as someone who uses burner accounts for traction on his comments.
In one of his posts about a penalty awarded against Manchester United, Goldbridge commented a completely contradictory statement, as if it came from another person who didn’t agree with him. The followers could easily get behind the truth as it was exposed that Goldbridge was supposed to log in from a different account and comment but he forgot to take the first step. This made it look like Goldbridge was having a rather comical conversation with himself.
When you forget to switch accounts to reply to yourself:
In the tweet made after Manchester City’s 2-0 win against Nottingham Forest, where Manchester City shot-stopper Ederson had a similar incident with Willy Boly. Goldbridge wrote, “Ederson does what Onana did yesterday and no Pen… Just not surprised anymore.” And sometime after that, a comment from the same handle read, “Not even remotely similar… Ederson leads with his hands. Forest player with his head. Clear who has the advantage and who fouls who.”
This is not Goldbridge’s first exposure to doing something like this. Back in 2018, Goldbridge had a similar faux pas as he commented using a different handle named Sandra Marsh. The followers under the recent incident were also quick the remind the streamer about the previous incident.
While it looks rather weird, it is a very common practice in the social media industry. Famous people comment contrasting opinions from fake accounts to increase interaction on their posts. This process of artificially driving interactions has proven to be rather successful, at least in the case of Goldbridge. These fake accounts are called ‘burner’ accounts it is slowly becoming a huge nuisance against authentic platform users.
Apart from his TUS, Goldbridge has three more channels, “That’s Football”, “Mark Goldbridge That’s Entertainment” and “Mark Goldbridge”. So it is clearly not possible for one person to both post and comment on all of these. This makes it apparent that he has probably hired a person or agency to handle the interactions and this mishap would’ve been a result of a miscommunication or a mere ‘slip’.
Manchester United dropped two points against Burnley last weekend at a 1-1 draw. The goal that United conceded came from a penalty as the United keeper Andre Onana clamoured into Amdouni in the 87th minute. With the season drawing to a close, this draw made United’s chances of securing European football immensely bleak, still trailing by six points behind Tottenham Hotspurs, who are fifth in the table.
