Local Old yells at youth to get off social media lawn

The MLB trade deadline came and went, and the Diamondbacks didn't join in the fun. That was probably the right course of action, given that the team isn't so bad for a fire sale, but isn't good enough to have delusions of competition. The only big rumor involving Arizona centered around Aroldis Chapman, and whether the D-backs would give up everything to acquire the Cuban fireballer.

Of course, nothing came to pass and alternate accounts came out to suggest the original report of the haul the D-backs offered was not correct. That a trade didn't happen isn't very interesting, or that the details being reported in the initial stages might not have been full accurate. What is interesting, though, is how people reacted on social media.

Social media, and the internet at large, has been interesting to observe as people have incorporated it more in their lives. It allows you to find people of like interest, or to interact with people and viewpoints you previously didn't have. It also can enable and grow fandom behaviors that previously were contained or internal. For instance, when a big trade gets rumored, baseball Twitter loses its damn mind.

I'm not going to dig up a bunch of Tweets to shame people for overreacting to the possible Chapman trade. It's just an interesting example of fandom on social media. I'm willing to bet that the Diamondbacks interest in Chapman was Dave Stewart just kicking the tires, or even inquiring about someone else and hearing that the closer was also available. Of course he's going to inquire because that's his job.

But I'm not even sure if people really cared that much about this specific rumor. It had some attention, turned out to not happen or possibly even be not true, and everyone moved. Is the interaction and collective freak-out enough?

So what's the deal, fellow Internet People? Why y'all getting so mad about trade deadline rumors?