Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Tim Tebow. Those are the three most well-known names in the world right now. Regardless if you like music or sports, all three of these names instantly ring a bell in your head as soon as they’re said.
The latter has gained instant superstar status over the last three or four months.
If someone mentions the NFL, Tim Tebow will mostly come up in that conversation. He’s one of the most polarizing figures in today’s culture.
He’s only been in the league for two years. He hasn’t won a Super Bowl. And he’s racked up as many awards as I have in the NFL.
So why has he gotten this much attention? It’s a combination of things really. In this day and age, with the advances of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, information spreads faster than ever.
Anybody can access this information and share it with their friends of course. And with this technology, people tend to tweet or blog about nearly everything that comes to their mind without even thinking.
Take “Tebowing” for instance. “Tebowing,” to put it simply, means to bend down on one knee, placing your elbow on your planted knee while making a fist under your chin, and begin to pray. This was the action that Tebow has done time and time again after every game or before a game-winning kick throughout the regular season.
After Tebow began doing this, a group of clever individuals spotted this and must have posted a picture of him “Tebowing” in one of their tweets and attached this phrase to the star quarterback of the Denver Broncos.
Several thousand retweets and countless YouTube videos later and you’ve got yourself a viral Internet meme.
There are also many other ways he has gained stardom through ways other than football. Take his religion for example. He’s a devout Christian evangelist who’s done a lot of philanthropic work to show his faith in God and help others. After every game, he usually thanks “his Lord and savior” in front of the media in post-game conferences.
The fact that he does this leads some people to believe he expresses over-the-top public piety. And there’s the other side where people admire his passion for his religion and faith and in some ways are inspired by it.
No matter what your opinion on this one is, his strong fundamentalist Christian beliefs are a constant driving force for conversation within the media and on the Internet.
These are just a couple of the reasons why Tebow is an international sensation in today’s pop culture world. As long as Tebow continues to play football and keeps winning games, “Tebowmania” will always be present in the media.
