If you are a female soccer player in the high school or college ranks, chances are you have heard of the @soccergrlprobs Twitter handle.
Punch the #soccergirlproblems or #SGP hash tag into your Twitter search box, and you're likely to get a slew of results in the vein of "Just found a piece of turf in my hair.... #soccergirlproblems" or "got a facebook request from coach...i knew this day would eventually come."
It's hilarious tweets like that which helped @soccergrlprobs rack up over 97,000 followers on the popular social networking site since Aug. of 2011, much to the delight of female athletes across the country who needed a forum to vent their true-life outrageous complaints about everyday life as a soccer player.
The Twitter handle got so popular that the girls in charge of it decided to add a related YouTube account called SoccerGrlProbsVids, which spawned a video, "S**t Soccer Girls Say," that tallied close to two million page views since Feb. of 2012.
You'd have to sellout Yankee Stadium 40 times over to match the amount of people who have seen the original YouTube video posted by SoccerGrlProbsVids.
They also have a blog that gets thousands of page views on a daily basis.
So who are the social media networking geniuses behind @soccergrlprobs and why are their individual identities not widely known like other popular YouTube personalities, Jenna Marbles and Tay Zonday?
The answer is less complicated than you'd imagine. Essentially, the posts from @Soccergrlprobs are always hilarious, but ultra-conservative school administrators may find some of the content offensive.
The girls "don't want to put their school on blast" by earning negative exposure for their soccer program.
Luckily, I had a chance to sit down with one of the girls in charge of @soccergrlprobs, and she revealed a little bit more about the identities of the site's administrators, as well as future plans for the initiative. Here's what she had to say:
Q. Many people have been wondering who runs the @soccergrlprobs Twitter handle, and it's become one of the biggest mysteries in social media networking today. Who comes up with the tweets for @soccergrlprobs?
A. Unfortunately, we will not be revealing our identities publicly yet. However, we can give you a few details.
There are three of us that created the Twitter, and each of us tweets daily. We are Division I soccer players and plan on tweeting until we can't think of any more soccer girl problems to complain about.
Q. What would you say is the biggest real-life soccer girl problem of all-time?
A. Soccer is known to be a very time-consuming sport.
Every soccer player has most likely said "I can't, I have soccer" at least once in their lives. Whether it's missing prom, a birthday party, even your grandparent's 50th wedding Anniversary - there was a chance we couldn't go because we had soccer.
Q. What do you think about the ridiculous success of your Twitter and YouTube accounts?
A. It is very hard to believe that in just nine months we have gained close to 100,000 followers. After talking about it numerous times, it is still a shock to us that all of these girls relate to what we are saying. The soccer world is evidently a small one.
It is comforting to know that we are not the only women soccer players out there dealing with these problems everyday. Also, don't get us wrong, we love soccer and will do anything for it; sometimes you just need to complain to keep you sane. "With training, comes complaining".
Q. Why do you feel that soccer girls nationwide enjoy your page so much?
A. Girls can relate to our tweets because they go through the same challenges as women soccer players. We absolutely think that all soccer girls go through the same problems, no matter what age or level you may play at.
Soccer is known to be one of the most complicated sports. Not only are you pressured to be physically fit, but you are also challenged to be mentality prepared and smart while playing.
I think it is easy to relate to our tweets when we are sarcastic and humorous. We try to take bothersome problems everyday and turn it into something to just sit back and laugh about. We appreciate all of the support that our fans have given us since August. They are the best fans any Twitter account can ask for!
Q. What are your future plans for @soccergrlprobs?
A. Originally, we made this Twitter account for fun. We wanted to make it a team-based thing where everyone would tweet a problem from our team to get a laugh out of it.
Little did we know how powerful the web can be. Every week we started gaining hundreds of followers. We thought "haha we must be doing something right!" Now that the website has grown so popular, we plan on making T-shirts and selling them right away! We have been receiving very positive feedback on the idea!
Q. That is a great idea, as plenty of YouTube personalities have been able to translate their success on the web into serious money-making opportunities. Are you worried about knockoff Twitter handles from other sports stealing a bit of your thunder?
A. We are sure that those Twitter accounts are solid. However, maybe they aren't blessed with the loyalty and passion that our @SoccerGrlProbs followers have shown us!
Eric Holden has been covering Long Island high school sports since 2009. Follow him on Twitter @ericholden.
Sources
Personal Source, @soccergrlprobs, Direct Messaging via Twitter
