Viralization of Rugby Sevens team video reopens controversy over athlete objectification | Relief

It’s almost impossible to look through Tik Tok and not find a video of Spain’s rugby sevens team players. The growth they experienced on social media, with more than 50,000 new subscribers over the past ten days represents an unprecedented phenomenon for this normally mid-level discipline. Also on social networks.

It all started ten days ago when the National Team account shared a video of its player Manu Moreno dancing the Macarena. At that time, the account had about 31,000 subscribers. The video went viral and views skyrocketed. Now it has exceeded three million Views and, in addition, this was a turning point for the rest of the publications, both new (their number remains large) and old (their number has also increased). Moreover, the account already exceeds 80 thousand.

The Spanish Rugby Federation itself was also surprised by how its videos went viral, but they understood what was happening as the opportunity to show everything that you haven’t seen (or didn’t know) about this sport, from physical preparation, training and exercises to the most emotional part when the players, for example, receive T-shirts from their families.

Since the first video (of Manu Moreno dancing the Macarena) went viral on social media, the Spanish Rugby Federation’s account has published four to five posts daily, alternating between men’s and women’s sections. It all started, according to the Relevo organization, under a prerequisite to make this sport and this team known before the match they played at the Cívitas Metropolitano.

The comments and topic of the video, however, opened up a debate about whether members of the rugby sevens team are being sexualised. Something they, of course, categorically denied, also stating that they were sharing content about the women’s section. The highest number of views was received by five videos in which athletes appear without shirts.

Although the Federation knows that maintaining this pace of publication is difficult as each member of the rugby sevens team plays in different parts of the world, They hope to make the most of the next month and a half. that the players are concentrated in Sant Cugat, preparing for the pre-Olympic games.