Top 5 Must-Follow Accounts of 2023, No. 5: Casper Ruud love-hates social media, and we love him for it

Casper Ruud might hate social media (sometimes), but we certainly love his accounts. The affable Norwegian is one of tennis' most plugged-in personalities, and has long used social media to connect with his fans on a deeper level.

Ruud is perhaps the sport's most avid user of X, the platform formerly called Twitter, where he not only treats his audience to Q&A sessions on the regular, but provides everything from pop culture commentary to his thoughts on the state of tennis.

This year was no different. In 2023, we learned that Ruud considers the Brendan Fraser flick "The Whale" as one of the best movies he's ever seen; loves Christian Bale-led "Batman" movies and their director, Christopher Nolan; and is the biggest fan of The Weeknd to be found on the tennis tour.

What tennis fans might not know about Ruud's "social" life, though, is that he also has an Instagram account dedicated to his other chief pursuit: his golf game. At @casper_golfer, which he launched in 2020, Ruud chronicles his world travels through various fairways, courses and clubs, records and shares videos, and posts scenic snapshots of himself relaxing on picturesque greens.

At nearly 13,000 followers, Ruud's golf account might not be as popular as his other channels—he boasts over 600,000 personal Instagram followers and over 90,000 on X—but it offers him an outlet to muse about the similarities between his two favorite sports. (And show off some trick shots, too.)

“I always enjoy a challenge and golf is the same,” Ruud said during last year's US Open. “You’re really playing yourself and your own emotions. In tennis you have only splits of a second to react, while golfing you have minutes between your shots.”

But being chronically online comes with a price, Ruud says. At the US Open this year, the three-time Grand Slam finalists lamented the fickle nature of social media, and the plethora of armchair experts one might find there, saying: "You go from being the best player in the world to the worst player in the history from one week to another, and it shouldn't be taken serious[ly]."

"It's a wicked place to spend too much time, I think. Because also reading about yourself is not really nice always," he continued.

"I don't know. I take it with a smile, but sometimes I just, yeah, I guess I can't control myself. It's easy to kind of communicate to other fans or haters, if you want to call them that.

"It's worth it sometimes, but it can be dangerous to spend too much time there, that's for sure."