In a world of attention-seekers, it can be hard to know both how to survive and how to make use of one’s own dwindling attention span. Everywhere you look there are things vying for it and begging for it and as a result life can sometimes become no more than an endless scroll, during which you see basically everything but learn next to nothing. 

In boxing, where the pursuit of attention is both encouraged and rewarded, to hide is to vanish. No longer enough just to fight, we have by now developed a culture in which boxers are conditioned to believe they must seek attention and publicity in order to be considered worthwhile or marketable in the eyes of promoters. As such, they often distort their true personality to play a part and have people acknowledge their existence. They might, for example, say something controversial at a press conference or, better yet, bring with them a “prop” and use it to draw attention to the fight they are selling. 

If that requires too much effort, or preparation, they might simply adopt a different online persona, behind which they can do everything in their power to force fans to stop scrolling and listen to all the inane things they have to say. For many of them it works, too. It works for boxers, it works for promoters, and it works for all the other men in the sport who, in lieu of a ring, require a way to prove or just tell you how big and strong and important they are. 

Some of these men post incessantly, as though teenagers who have never known anything else, whereas others buy online real estate – social media account; whole websites – and saturate the market. Suddenly, because of this, you can’t look anywhere without seeing their name, face, or publication. Suddenly you feel as though you know their thoughts and feelings on a greater level than even those of your own family. 

That is the nature of a chronically online world, alas, where only muting, blocking, or total avoidance can preserve one’s sanity. If engaged and part of it, and it is increasingly hard not to be, one always runs the risk of reading something one would rather not read or watching something one would rather not watch. Online, after all, there are no curators to be found; only sinister algorithms and rewards for the most vocal and least self-aware. For them, going viral is the ultimate goal – always. Rather than something treated, either with rest or a cream, it is to be embraced, pursued, and celebrated. 

Of the countless ways to go viral, very few make sense, and in boxing only one man does it the right way. That man is of course Joseph Parker, the heavyweight from New Zealand whose viral videos helped to brighten up lockdown for many during the Covid-19 pandemic. Back then, acting out and miming to either a scene from a film or a popular song, Parker defied the heavyweight boxer stereotype to offer something light, playful, and refreshingly human. In the process he managed to not only show his personality, but also showed the rest of the boxing world a way to gain love and attention without having to either become someone else or do something objectionable. 

While peers were flexing and yelling and discovering caps lock, Parker chose to lean into his personality rather than run away from it. He said, in each of the videos, this is me: the husband; the father; the friend. He saw no reason to conceal the fun side of his personality and therefore found attention of a healthy, pure kind. He found attention not by toughening his persona, the approach of so many, but by instead softening it, almost a radical act in this day and age. 

In fact, were it not for these videos, Parker would perhaps be a man tricky to promote in 2025. He is, after all, as pleasant as they come; a humble man respectful of opponents and the sport itself. Never, even if tempted, has he been one to hurl insults at opponents, much less tables and chairs, and never has he been one to raise his voice, speak out of turn, or sell himself, whether online or in person. 

“I’m just who I am,” he told me in January. “I can’t be an angry person and I can’t put on a show like I’m angry or want to talk crap. That’s not me. I probably have tried a little bit in the past but it comes out fake, not real, and it feels like I’m trying to be someone that I’m not.”

His videos, each of them shot by videographer Kerry Russell, do the selling on Parker’s behalf. Even though short, they manage to present the image of Parker he wants the world to see and they also do that rare thing: attract attention for their artistic merit. This, in 2025, is maybe the hardest task of all, and for Parker and Russell to nail both the concept and the performance and then deliver something to fans worthy of their attention is no mean feat. 

Indeed, given it is incongruous with everything else we see these days, it feels like a cleansing whenever a new Parker video emerges on one’s timeline to disrupt the relentless stream of recycled news, egg puns, racial slurs, or a boxer telling you they are “locked in”. All of a sudden, when stumbling upon one, there is a bit of light, a glimmer of hope even. There is hope that boxers can still embrace their true self, rather than escape it, and there is hope, moreover, that people can still be creative and take time over something, knowing full well that the finished product will be decidedly better than all the other bits of “content” rushed to production for fear of missing out. 

Naturally, too, the better Parker does in the ring, the more weight and relevance these videos carry. His latest, for instance, sees him calling out Oleksandr Usyk, the best heavyweight in the world, in his own charming, inimitable way; that is, by serenading the Ukrainian with “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain. 

One of his best, undoubtedly, the Usyk video concludes with Parker and his “backing singers” standing on a beach in west Auckland with the words “I am very feel” – the Usyk catchphrase – written in the sand. At no point does he ever threaten to eat Usyk’s children, decapitate him, or even dethrone him. Instead, it is as much an ode to Usyk as a typical call-out video, which in itself sets it apart. In addition, Parker, having performed the same trick before, will know that far more people will notice this attempt to get what he wants than they would if he simply followed all the other boxers trying to gain attention the old-fashioned way: spitting; snarling; slagging someone off. He also knows that Usyk, no stranger to larking about, will take it the right way and at the very least give the video a watch at some stage. 

In that respect Joseph Parker has played a blinder – again. It might not be enough to secure him the fight – not immediately anyway – but what it does do is create, or just strengthen, a legion of fans who now want to see it, if only as a reward for his efforts, both in the ring and on Karekare beach.