Just last season, the Sixers ruled the local social media landscape and had one of the best Twitter accounts in the country. They were praised nationally and locally. They were outside the box, where most of the other teams locally (PHILLIES) posted simple score updates and “We’re here at the ballpark” nonsense, @Sixers was throwing up memes, Vines, and adapted Snapchat in a way other teams still haven’t caught up with, with the exception of the Eagles, who have upped their game big-time in recent years. The account was run by Sandro Gasparro and Max Rappaport, both of whom have left– Max very recently, just before the season tipped off, though he announced his departure months ago. Now, in the apparent absence of a successor, the social media accounts are garbage.

The Sixers haven’t snapchatted once this season. Who cares?, you, average 28-30 male reader, might say. But Snapchat is huge and growing in popularity amongst high school and college kids, so much so that major networks, like ESPN and Comedy Central, create exclusive content for the service. Having a presence there is important. Plus, the Phillies snapchatted more recently than the Sixers have. The Phillies.

Then there’s Vine. Through eight regular season games, the Sixers haven’t posted a Vine.

And then there’s the tone of their Tweets. Once conversational and fun (good social media-ing!), now vanilla and corporate (bad social media-ing!).

Let’s compare and contrast some Tweets (small sample-size warning, obviously), from last season and this season:

Last:

This:

Last:

This:

Last:

This:

Old @Sixers had a fun little beef with the Milwaukee Bucks, new @Sixers tells us how many assists JaKarr Sampson had in the first half. The account has been stripped of all that made it interesting. It’s still early, and the Sixers directory shows they haven’t hired a new social media director yet. But all of a sudden the Sixers are the Phillies on Twitter.

During Saturday night’s back-and-forth, sloppy, scrapfest between the Sixers and Magic, @Sixers didn’t tweet once in the second half. What happened in that second half? Big shots, controversial calls, an injury that took Jerami Grant out of the game, and, oh yeah, Nerlens Noel was assessed a Flagrant 2 foul and ejected from the game after being antagonized and elbowed by former Sixer Jason Smith. On Twitter? Silence. They never posted a final score.

It’s unfortunate for the Sixers that both pieces of the two-man team behind their widely-praised social media decided to leave this year. And they still may replace them with someone great, but for now their presence is barely there, or not there at all, and it’s a little embarrassing.