Let me be real with you for a second. I’ve never been a fan of those tacked-on social media feeds in video games. They always felt like the most boring, sanitized version of an experience that, let's face it, is already pretty toxic in real life. Marvel's Midnight Suns gave it a decent shot by keeping it in the superhero lane, but most of the time, it just feels like a waste of digital space. Now, playing EA Sports FC 25 in 2026, they’ve gone and integrated this feed more prominently into Career Mode. And honestly? All it did was hit me with a brutal truth: the social media landscape I once knew is totally, utterly dead. It’s not just resting, it’s pushing up daisies.

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You’ve probably heard of the Dead Internet Theory, right? There are two flavors: the full-on tinfoil hat version, and the ‘huh, that actually tracks’ version. I’m a casual believer in the latter, and video games have weirdly become one of my main pieces of evidence. The crackpot version says most of what you see online is fake, generated by bots to feed algorithms, orchestrated by some shadowy government cabal to keep us all docile. The sensible version is basically the same, just without the secret society part. And man, in 2026, it’s harder than ever to argue with it.

We can see it plain as day. A massive chunk of social media content is bot-generated. On what’s left of Twitter (or X, or whatever we’re calling it this week), it’s in the replies. On Facebook, it’s those bizarre, nonsensical AI image posts designed to trick your tech-averse aunt. But here’s the kicker: even on TikTok and other platforms, so many real people now post such generic, asinine content that they’re nearly indistinguishable from the bots. At that point, does it even matter? The platform is dead. This whole decline went into overdrive after a certain billionaire took the reins and decided to, well, ‘innovate’.

The one-two punch of pay-to-play verification and artificially boosting those verified replies to the top of every thread created a perfect storm. Now, any account with a decent following gets its replies flooded with:

  • Bot phrases parroting other bots.

  • The original tweet just copied and pasted back.

  • Strings of emojis that look like a toddler got hold of the keyboard. 🔥🔥🔥

  • Weird Mad Libs-style guesses.

  • Shameless ads for... ahem... adult content.

It’s all just noise designed to scrape a microscopic fraction of a penny per engagement, with zero intention of actually discussing anything. The conversation is gone.

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Playing FC 25 recently, I had a real moment of clarity about what we’ve lost. Aside from the professional perks (which have dwindled), my main use for Twitter was as a hub for football fans. It was my lifeline. I could:

  • Eavesdrop on conversations from different fanbases.

  • Get news faster than any official outlet.

  • Catch highlights from leagues I don’t normally follow.

  • Feel connected to my own club’s community.

These days? Forget about it. Football social media is now a swamp of ‘influencers’ making every moment about themselves and bot replies that sound like they were generated by Commander Data after a system malfunction. It’s surreal. FC 25 has these fake, in-game responses to (fake) player debuts, and I swear to you, they are less robotic than the real replies I see on official Premier League posts now. We’ve reached peak irony.

Now, it’s not completely barren. I still follow a bunch of hardcore Newcastle fans, and their replies are usually from real, passionate people (shout out to the hyperbolic morons – you keep it interesting). And I’ll admit, during the transfer window, it’s still my go-to for news, even if it’s a rollercoaster of false hope. But if a player I don’t know signs for a club, I don’t even bother scrolling the replies for insight anymore. It’s a fruitless endeavor.

It’s weird to mourn Twitter, because let’s be honest, I never really liked it. But the complete erosion of any meaningful comment section has turned it into a dystopian marketplace. It’s just a series of digital beggars with bullhorns, screaming over anything you actually want to see. Remember that ‘inventor’ a while back who proposed an all-AI social network where fake characters reply to your posts? Well, congrats, you don’t need a new app. Just buy a blue checkmark on the old one, and you’ve got it.

Here’s where EA Sports FC 25 gets unintentionally, tragically brilliant. They’ve put genuine effort into their social feed. They’ve partnered with real football media personalities like Fabrizio Romano and The Athletic to lend authenticity. But it still hits that same uncanny valley every in-game social feed does – it feels painfully false and corporate.

But in 2026, that’s the genius of it. By making their social feed so obviously fake, curated, and sanitized, EA has accidentally created the most realistic portrayal of social media yet. The real one is just like that now. The bots, the vapid engagement chasing, the death of organic conversation – FC 25’s feed is a polished mirror reflecting our fractured digital reality. It’s not an escape from our bot-infested world; it’s a hauntingly accurate simulation of it. And that, my friends, is a real gut-punch moment in modern gaming.