A Sociological Analysis Of Every Instagram Post Tom Brady Has Shared Since His Divorce
Finally using my Oxford master's degree.
If Bravo and ESPN had a baby, it would be Impersonal Foul. This newsletter is free, but consider becoming a paying subscriber to support the work that I’m doing.
We started talking about Tom Brady’s post-divorce Instagram strategy on The Sports Gossip Show around when we theorized that Jordon Hudson was running Bill Belichick’s Instagram account.
At the time, Tom posted a photo of a sunset with The Chicks’ cover of ‘Landslide’ after news broke that his ex, Gisele Bündchen, was having a baby with her jiu jitsu-instructor boyfriend.
It felt like such an intimate look at Brady’s inner thoughts. Almost as if he was reacting in real-time to the news just as the general public was.
Flash forward to the present day and Brady continues to be a very online man.
He’s shared strange AI-generated memes, lengthy EOY recap posts with moody captions, and, of course, photos of him playing football even though he’s retired.
It got us thinking: Given what we know about his relationship with Gisele, his career as a professional football player, and just as a recently divorced guy, how much did his Instagram strategy change after the divorce was finalized?
We go into all of our findings and takeaways in today’s episode of The Sports Gossip Show, which you can watch or listen to, but I wanted to share some of the original content analysis I conducted on his feed for the episode.
Why would I do this?
Well, I did get my master’s degree in sociology from the University of Oxford, where I wrote a 10,000-word thesis on how the top 15 most followed male and female celebrities use Instagram.
For that research, I conducted a content analysis on over 5,000 images and videos and interviewed social media managers for celebrities to understand the extent to which public figures curate their image on Instagram.
While a sample size of one isn’t really the most academically sound, I figured it might be interesting to apply the same methodology and theoretical framework to Tom Brady’s post-divorce Instagram strategy.
Here are the findings:
Theoretical Framework & Methodology
Like any good sociologist, we have to start with a theoretical framework to ground the research. Stick with me for this…
For this study, I used Irving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory and seminal sociological work, The Presentation of Self, to answer the question: How does Tom Brady develop and present a version of himself on Instagram post-divorce?
Goffman’s dramaturgical approach and theoretical framework help explain how individuals present an “idealized” version of themselves rather than one that is authentic to who they truly are.
In this theory, individuals participate in “performances,” where they adjust their behavior to the observer.
The “performances” in this case would be posts on Brady’s Instagram and the observer is his followers.
According to Goffman, this process is called “impression management.”
The process of impression management occurs in both the “front region” and “back region”.
The “front region” is where individuals display their “idealized” version of themselves. The “back region” is where the facade fades, and there is no longer a need to put on a front for the audience.
For any Instagram user—Brady included—the front region is the curated post itself, whereas the back region is who you truly are off social media.
Using Goffman’s dramaturgy theory, this project examines impression management tactics employed by Tom Brady on his Instagram account with assistance from his team.
There have been studies in the past that have indicated (to no surprise) that it may be easier to control impression management in digital settings rather than face-to-face give the level of control over how an individual can present themselves.
Anyways! Now onto the methodology…
The content analysis and coding frame were developed using Klaus Krippendorff’s methodology.
Content analysis quite literally meant I went through every in-feed post Brady has shared on Instagram since the divorce was finalized on October 28, 2022 through December 31st, 2025.
In total, I manually coded and analyzed 160 in-feed posts.
Wait—what do you mean by coding?! Not like computer coding, don’t worry.
I drew from methodology researchers used in previous content analysis studies to develop codes that related to caption copy to understand the association between the text’s tone and emojis in the textual communication and the images or videos being shared in the feed post.
It took…a while as you might imagine, but it was so worth it given what I discovered.
The Findings
Out of the 160 in-feed posts Tom Brady shared over the course of 1,160 days, 47% were videos, 45% were images, and 7.5% were carousel posts with both.
That’s! A! Lot! Of! Content!
When it came to the type of caption he used, the majority of posts included either a neutral or a positive caption.
The least frequent type of caption he shared was a combination of neutral and funny.
None of this was that surprising. Brady is a positive guy and he’s the GOAT after all.
What was surprising was the fact that Brady often shared posts with very long captions, giving you a glimpse into the back region you rarely see from celebrities.
At times, it almost felt like Brady was processing the dissolution of his marriage and his retirement via Instagram captions:
Now onto the meatier findings: What Brady actually shared on Instagram.
*Before we get into this portion, I wanted to remind everyone that one Instagram post can include multiple themes, which is why there are more thematic occurrences than the number of posts. Don’t come for me statisticians!*
Overwhelmingly, Brady posted content about work, his kids, his family, and football the most frequently.
Content that had to do with work was everything from his work as a commentator for the NFL on FOX to highlighting his electric boat racing team (did you know he had that???).
Not surprisingly, Brady posted a lotttt of content that had to do with his kids or family.
My personal favorite is back in 2024 when he shared a Father’s Day post dedicated to his dad, where the first photo is Brady without a shirt with his kids on a boat… LMAO.
Brady often included his kids or family in content that was related to work, like his homecoming to the Patriots or his retirement announcement.
Interestingly, since Brady retired, there were 32 occurrences of content related to football. Every chance he gets, Brady loves to throw that damn football:
One of my favorite themes I coded was content related to “Trying To Be Cool On Social”, where Brady is either reacting to internet trends or collaborating with top creators like Dude Perfect:
Unlike many other celebrities (ex. Taylor Swift), it almost feels like in his post-divorce Instagram era, Brady is blending his front and back regions for his followers to see.
At times, it’s subtle and in other instances, he’s sharing the cover of a Fleetwood Mac song after he found out his ex really moved on.
In many ways, Brady uses Instagram the same way we all do: He wants to be seen and heard.
This newsletter is already very long, so I’ll stop now, but if you want to hear more of my thoughts on the matter, you can listen or watch our latest episode of The Sports Gossip Show.
I’m curious to hear what everyone else thinks about his post-divorce Instagram strategy.
Sound off in the comments!
And if you haven’t already, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to support more work like this.
You can follow me on Instagram here, Twitter here and TikTok here. Enjoy the endless void of content!
I’m sorry but this is actually the lord’s work. Perfect in every way
This is the type of academic research I want to see!!!
Also, is your thesis published? Can we read it?