The year is 2020. My sister's boyfriend has a friend who knows an epidemiologist, and I will be posting a Twitter thread about their experience reading a study on COVID-19. No editors, no gatekeepers, just me, blasting my opinion into the internet for the world to see. I hope I get retweeted. Maybe I'll title it, "Why your lack of COVID-19 knowledge compared to mine is problematic." I don't know, I'll work on it.
The year is 2020, and everyone has the means to share their opinions on a mass scale. According to the demographics, odds are that your little brother's doing it on Twitter, and your parents are doing it on Facebook.
But, no matter where you're sharing your opinion, or what you're saying, Dana White doesn't care.
Even though I'm technically part of the media Dana's yelling at here, I can't help but find his message refreshing. Dana White doesn't care about what five, or five hundred people say about the UFC holding its scheduled April 18 event headlined by Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.
What a relief.
In corporate America, there's far too much preening, far too much pandering, all in the name of pleasing a loud minority that will never be satiated. What's the payoff? There isn't one, besides setting a precedent atop a high horse that anyone would eventually fall down from.
Take the NBA for example, which has positioned itself as the socially conscious league, led by commissioner Adam Silver. That payed dividends in positive coverage, something league's vastly overvalue.
The problem is, trying to profit from progressiveness means walking a tight rope between moralism and turning a profit. For example, the NBA reaps the affirmation it gets from encouraging its players to speak out about domestic social issues, but quickly silenced Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who tweeted his support for Hong Kong.
China, an authoritarian regime with documented muslim internment camps, is a vital part of the NBA's business model. That wouldn't look that bad, if only it didn't look so hypocritical. The NBA wants all the rewards of progressivism, while trading with the most dubious of partners. It's all a facade, and it's very unsustainable.
I prefer the Dana White approach. No smoke, no mirrors, no politicking. He's in business to do business. He says, if you don't like how he operates, go find another enterprise. I can't help but like his enterprise more.