Orenthal James “O.J.” Simpson, former American football star and actor, died yesterday at the age of 76. Simpson, whose life was overshadowed by the infamous trial in which he was accused and ultimately acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, not to mention a subsequent 2008 armed robbery conviction, remained a figure of intense public scrutiny until his last days. However, his final years after being released from prison in 2017 were marked not by sports or film, but instead by his unlikely emergence as a prolific social media user, where he developed a “posthumous” reputation as a poster discussing topics ranging from sports commentary to racial justice.

Simpson’s transition to social media came long after his public fall from grace, and he started his Twitter journey in 2019 with a post declaring he had “a little getting even to do”. The platform offered him a direct line to the public, bypassing the traditional media that had, in his view, made up its mind that he was a murderer. Simpson’s tweets, often controversial, reflected an ongoing battle to reshape his narrative. He commented on everything from NFL games to significant social and political events, even giving his take on other high-profile legal cases such as Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd.

This posthumous-style poster’s existence on social media — where Simpson tried to resurrect a semblance of the public figure he once was — serves as a striking modern-day reflection of how legacy and infamy intermingle in the digital age. Unlike fellow sports star Mike Tyson, who was convicted of rape but used the ensuing decades to reposition himself as a misunderstood and tragic figure, Simpson never came close to winning over the public or regaining control of his narrative.