Social media made C.J. Miles delete accounts

On the debut episode of our new Raptors show, "Strictly Hoops with C.J. Miles," the former Raptor discusses how the social media boom has impacted players and his own personal experiences dealing with online hate.

Video Transcript

CJ MILES: So the way my social media handles became masfresco is strictly from that. I was on social media the first time when it was popping off, when Twitter came about. I remember when it came about. And I was CJMiles34 at this time.

I was on there. I jumped on it because it was the new thing. And it was just-- and I didn't know how to handle it when it got to that space. It started to, like, negatively affect me just because I'm a people person.

So like, I got on there for the excitement of being able to be a people person. And people took advantage of that because they knew I was there. So they started talking, and I started to feel it, you know what I mean? And-- and it started to just weigh on me.

So like, I ended up just getting off of social media completely until I figured out-- because obviously, if that's messing with me, I'm not comfortable enough with myself. So I was like, let me get off of here so I don't even have to hear it, so I can figure this out, just play basketball, do all that.

And that's how I ended up coming back as masfresco. Because I'm like, if I'm going to come back, I'm going to come back with my personality as a person, not just as a basketball page. And you know, I wanted to showcase all of me if I was going to be there. And that's-- that's another story for another time.

And then there was a player that I played with when I'm first becoming a veteran. They're bashing him. He is-- is in the height of it. Instagram's firing now. Twitter's firing now. Everything is-- and they were killing him.

And I remember saying to him-- and he was younger than me. He was 19, maybe. Get off your phone, man. Not even-- I wasn't even at the height of what he is. And I just know how it felt. This is why I knew to say this to him, just because I had dealt with it. I'm like, get off your phone, man.

Like, that's another voice you don't need. You're already fighting your own voice right now. You don't need millions of other voices telling you what you-- one, you already know. And they're not going to ever speak from the side of how you can get out of this. They're only going to speak on you're doing bad, because that's what's going to click on there.

And it just became a spiral. And it was tough on him. Like, people just came from every direction. They exhausted every avenue they could to make us say that he wasn't going well, you know what I mean?

And it just-- it was hard on him. It was a hard, hard time. It was hard to be around because you couldn't even do anything for him. You couldn't lift him.