Getty Kevin Durant answers questions during Brooklyn Nets Media Day.
Brooklyn Nets star forward Kevin Durant is no stranger to the world of social media. In fact, when you look at the history, Durant probably interacts with his fans on social media more than any athlete of his stature.
Durant is active on many social media platforms, but of all his accounts he is probably the most active on is Twitter. KD is always replying to tweets where fans take personal jabs at him or his in-game performances. A recent study has shown that his activity on the website has caused the Nets’ star forward to become one of social media’s biggest villians.
Kevin Durant Amongst Most Hated Twitter Accounts
According to Alex Kennedy of Basketball News, a new study by Top Ranked Casino gathered information on which NBA Players receive the most negative tweets.
“They compiled roughly 3,000 tweets that were sent to various NBA players between October 2020 to January 2021, and each tweet was analyzed for positive, negative, and neutral words using the online analytics tool SEMrush,” Kennedy writes.
The top five players on the list were Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, Joel Embiid, LeBron James, and Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant. Durant’s teammate Kyrie Irving was right behind him coming in at sixth place on the list.
Kevin Durant Is No Stranger to Twitter Fails
This is not Durant’s first Twitter fail. Back in 2017, the two-time Finals Most Valuable Player was caught red-handed responding to a fan’s insults towards him. Harmless right? It would have been except Durant thought that he was responding to the fan from his burner account.
A burner account is a secondary social media account that a celebrity or person of high stature uses to express their true opinions on certain subject matters that would be viewed as controversial. Durant detailed why he chooses to use burner accounts back in 2019.
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“I wasn’t used to that amount of attention, you know, from playing basketball. I wanted a place where I can talk to my friends without anybody just butting in my conversations or mixing my words or taking everything out of context because I enjoyed that place,” Durant said during an appearance on The Boardroom.
“I try to live a normal life out in the public …”
– @KDTrey5 on his burner account
Athletes are in the eyes of the public for most of their lives before they even begin to play professionally. They never really have the opportunity to live the life of an average person. So, to a certain extent having a burner account is understandable.
“I had an Instagram account that I just use for my friends and family. Like, it’s a cool place for me just to be me instead of worrying about Bleacher Report or Barstool mixing up anything I want to say,” Durant said.
KD Still Uses a Burner Account
Despite KD’s burner account mishap being one of the lower moments of his career, KD admits that he still uses it to this day.
“I have a burner Twitter account still. See, when people used that burner thing against me, they only thought I was over there just to talk s–t. [But] I was really indulging a lot of different communities on my burner,” Durant said to Barstool via NBC Sports.
“So, when I deleted it, I was like, ‘What the …’ These people really made me delete what I enjoy — which is my burner account. So, I got another one. Just to kind of do my own thing on the side, you know.
As accomplished as Durant is, it should not come as a surprise that he is one of the most hated athletes on Twitter. Winning his third championship this year would only increase the disdain that people have for him.
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