According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), more than half of the world’s population — over four billion people — consumed information from the 2024 Paris Olympics through television broadcasts and digital channels, watching athletes from all over the world participate in 329 events across 32 sports. But unlike previous Summer Olympic Games, social media was a primary source of Olympic coverage for many viewers.
“I would rarely watch it [live]. … [I got] a lot of my Olympic information [from] TikTok and Instagram,” Charley Roberts ‘27 said.
According to the IOC, official Olympics social media handles amassed over 12 billion engagements, which is more than double that of Tokyo 2020. However, it was not just the IOC’s content that people engaged with.
“Simone Biles has [nearly] 13 million followers [on Instagram], which she used to great effect,” Head of School Dan Miller said. “Social media and news streams created a platform for athletes to tell their personal stories.”
A total of 5,733 accredited media personnel attended this summer’s Olympic Games. Near-constant coverage flooded email inboxes, online news pages and social media feeds — but the content was not all about medals and records.
“[There was] a whole thing about the chocolate muffins [from the Olympic village],” Talula Rogers ‘26 said. “And a few weeks later … I made those, and I probably wouldn’t have if they hadn’t been such a big thing online.”
This summer’s Olympic coverage celebrated athletes’ achievements somewhat differently from previous years. “I really liked the reduced emphasis on the need to win gold medals,” Miller said. “There was just much more conversation about all the athletes — and medalling as a whole was considered a victory, [rather than] a gold medal being the only thing that people cared about.”
A number of Olympic athletes went viral for reasons other than winning gold.
“There was this Turkish shooter who didn’t use any [extra] equipment, just his gun. And without social media, that likely wouldn’t have been something that a lot of people had known about,” Noah Rockman ‘25 said.
Additionally, certain celebrities who attended the Olympics received attention on social media.
“The [celebrity] that really stuck out was Snoop Dogg. I thought it was cool to see him … but in a way it felt like propaganda, especially when I found out he was making [thousands of dollars] a day to be there,” Rockman said. “Like, is this really what we need to spend this much money on? To fly this guy out to be like, ‘This is America’?”
“I did not really want to watch that much Snoop Dogg,” Miller said. “In my honest opinion, a little Snoop Dogg goes a long way.”
Social media and online news platforms provided a range of Olympic coverage, but some disliked that a lot of the most popular content was focused on athletes’ humor and public appeal rather than the athletic events themselves.
“I didn’t read too many things in the news about athletes, just because I feel like it’s often a ton of gossip,” Rogers said.
“Last Olympics, there was definitely more coverage … about people excelling in their sport,” Roberts said. “Social media kind of turned it into a [question of], ‘What’s the most funny? What can we laugh about?’”
Despite some misgivings about social media commentary surrounding the Paris Olympics, there were also a number of positives.
“Social media has definitely helped with giving notoriety to athletes,” Rockman said. “It really helped with advocating for women who are athletes — a large portion of gold medals that the Americans won were from women, and I think social media really helped with giving those women their props.”
“Mainstream media [in the U.S.] tends to focus on American athletes, [whereas] social media covers a broader spectrum of international athletes,” Miller said. “The social media element … allowed a much broader range of athletes to have platforms. … It brought in younger viewers and it brought people more in contact with less celebrated sports.”