I quit social media because supporting Aston Villa online isn't worth it

This month’s Claret & Blue ‘Villa Social’ episode shined a light on men’s mental health as five Aston Villa content creators gathered to open up about their own battles and encourage others to speak up about their feelings and take action.

November is Men's Health Awareness Month, which includes the annual Movember campaign aims to change the way men think about their health and reduce mortality from prostate and testicular cancer and suicide. Mental health doesn't discriminate, it can affect anyone regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, or other factors.

Thanks to our loyal Claret & Blue audience, we are able to use our platform to not only chat about the Villa, but also focus on what really matters in life and we thought there was no better time to do that than in November’s episode. After uploads in September and October, this is the third ‘Villa Social’ shoot, which includes Dan Rolinson, James Rushton, Ty Bracey, Max Stokes and Dan Bardell.

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They spoke candidly about their personal struggles with mental health and experiences with social media, a landscape which is more chaotic and fragmented than ever before. Social media, particularly Twitter or X, feels like a breeding ground for negativity and for many reasons Elon Musk’s platform has been rapidly bleeding users to other platforms in recent weeks.

“It’s difficult for me because I was on social media speaking a lot about mental health, to not at all,” strong mental health advocate Bracey started. “I don't talk about it and I haven’t even put supportive tweets out anymore. That’s not because I’ve stopped caring, it’s because I’ve stopped caring about social media.

“I have no interest. I don’t even go on there to look at squad line-ups. Where Villa are at, and I said this to Ian Taylor when I saw him out for his birthday, my worry is because we’ve had such a good season, how will it be if we don’t replicate or better that this season?

“Things can turn, and they have. I’ve watched it turn and I made the conscious decision not to be part of that anymore. I can’t spend my time and energy talking to people I don’t know and won’t know to try and change their mind about something I’m positive about.”

“I don’t bother on Twitter,” Stokes admitted. “I don’t mind speaking my mind on YouTube, but I think some platforms are different from others. Twitter is the worst. Unless it was Gerrard, I’m not going to say ‘he should be sacked, he should never play for Villa again, whatever, whatever’. I won’t tweet anymore unless I’m promoting a video or Luke clothing. There’s just no need because people just want a reaction. They want a reaction and it’s just sad.”

Rolinson added: “I deleted Twitter off my phone for one day and I actually thought to myself, what am I actually going to do with my phone apart from using WhatsApp? I just find myself scrolling on Twitter and I don’t want to get too deep about it, but us as people, I don’t think we’re built for this level of being able to link with anyone in the world. Our brains aren’t wired to be open to everybody all the time. To have thousands of people on your phone all the time, it’s too much to deal with.”

“We’re used to having these 10 pieces of feedback from family members or our circle which we act on, but when it’s amplified by thousands and there’s 20 negative comments and 100 good ones,” Rushton continued. “The positive ones don’t impact your behaviour, but the negative ones you have to process, because it could mean that in another setting you’re doing something bad.”

“I remember doing a Villa Spaces at the time when Grealish was off,” Bracey recalled. “It should have been a time where I was happy with what was going on [with Spaces] because we got to number one on trending while Love Island was on.

“There were 5,000 people latching on to everything we were saying about the Grealish saga. That should have been a time where I was really happy with what I was doing, but all it would take was one negative comment over a thousand good ones.

“All it would take would be that one comment, no matter what good was said to me. I am clinging onto that one thing. I’m getting ready to go live and I didn’t have any happiness towards it, thinking what is someone going to say to hurt my feelings.”

“It’s mad when it’s literally one in 1,000,” Rolinson admitted. “You should look at the other 999 comments that are amazing and saying nice things. We’ve made a joke about it on the podcast before. There’s a collage we have about bad reviews, like ‘you with a big nose, you’re boring’. I don’t mind those, they can be funny sometimes. But then commenting about the way someone talks, I’m questioning everything I say.”

Negative or abusive social media interactions can lead to increased stress and anxiety. Research studies have also established connections between mental health issues such as depression.

“It’s all good and well saying ‘it doesn’t affect me’, but it has to in some way,” Stokes said about negative comments. “It’s not nice hearing it. I heard a podcast from someone recently and it’s almost trendy to hate him. He was saying that he likes that hate because it helps the brand, which I can understand but there has to be a level because it’s not healthy.”

“Those negative reactions, that’s why some people do certain things,” Rushton added. “It’s like leaving weird stuff in TikToks to get comments. You get the negative attention and you get more comments and that might boost you. But you’ve got to look after yourself.”

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Bardell said: “It genuinely doesn’t bother me. I will reply to people. Usually you can reply and make them look stupid. I only ever have people say nice things to me in person. Villa fans will come up to me and say nice things.

“I find that really nice and I will stop and talk to anyone because I know those people have helped me get to do the work I have done. The thing that annoys me more is when there was a guy who had a go at Max for something about ticket prices. It was personal, it was false. It was just envy and jealousy.”

“I would argue back and forth with someone arguing why someone should or shouldn’t be in the team and I think that the person is the negative one so I’m trying to put it right and de-escalate a situation,” Rolinson explained. “But I don’t know them and I’m sitting there putting my son to bed or sorting my tea, while also trying to reply to someone. But why am I doing it?

“Forget what I’m doing in real life for a minute, I need to reply to a comment. It’s part of my job, but if it wasn’t I would put social media to one side. I don’t want to scroll and be sucked away from actual things.”

Stokes added: “You can disagree with people, it would be boring if not. I think it’s the way people go on about it. We were in Bruges and I met a bloke in a bar and we had a chat about how tickets were distributed and we didn’t agree. That’s fine.

“We had a normal conversation because we were in person. Nobody said ‘I don’t agree and you’ve got a big forehead’, or ‘your glasses are stupid’. Just have a normal conversation and people cannot do that on Twitter because it’s points scoring.”

Whether you can relate to what the lads were saying on the podcast or not, the main message they wanted to convey was that it’s okay to not be okay whatever battles you’re facing and to enforce the important message of talking.

“Even now I’m thinking about people saying, ‘these five blokes think they’re a big deal talking about their life’,” Bardell joked, before Stokes added: “Just remember we are just five mates in a room chatting, so we are going to talk about ourselves.”

“You can really feel like you can lose your mind,” Bracey ended. “What I wanted people to get from this episode was that it’s OK not to feel certain ways, have good days and bad days. Even if it’s only one story we’ve shared relates to someone else’s life then it makes a difference.

“When you are struggling, the first step is to talk. You need to do that to help to get by and if we have helped one person then we’ve had a positive impact.”