Have you ever seen Jimmy Kimmel have celebrities read mean tweets that people have sent them? They can be pretty funny sometimes. The stars usually let the words of one tweet roll off with a smile and a laugh, and we all know that the people who sent those are just looking for a reaction, so we don’t think anything of it.
But what happens when those tweets go too far or when there’s more than one? What happens when the words are more than just mean?
That’s what has been happening to women in sports media for years. The Internet has just made it a lot easier. Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro, two Chicago-based sports journalists, are tired of it. A few days ago, they were featured in a PSA released by "Just Not Sports," a podcast that “talks to the sports world about anything and everything… just not sports.”
The video featured men reading hateful comments that other people had sent to DiCaro and Spain through social media right to their faces. It’s incredibly powerful, full of cruel and coarse language that is hard to believe anyone would ever send to a person they don’t even know.
Take four minutes and watch the video, but be prepared because it’s hard to watch.
I know that both men and women who work in the public eye will catch a lot of flack, but people are telling male journalists that their opinions are wrong, not that they should be raped. I also know that the Internet is full of trolling people who just want a reaction, and it’s hard to stop that. But these aren’t just harmless mean comments; some of them are legitimate threats.
When someone says that they hope a survivor of sexual assault (DiCaro) gets raped again, it's not harmless. For someone to tell a sportswriter that hopefully she is Bill Cosby’s next victim, it stops being just a mean comment. When people start using language like "b----" and "c---," a line is crossed, and we can’t just let it go.
Yet, people are calling for Spain and DiCaro, and any other well-known person getting mean comments, to just ignore them, block the user and move on.
That’s a lot easier said than done.
Even if it was easy to ignore the thousands of hateful comments they receive, they shouldn’t have to ignore them. The comments and threats shouldn’t be there at all, but they are, and even though most people know it’s not acceptable to send comments like that, they still think the solution is to turn a blind eye.
Juliet Macur is a sports columnist for The New York Times who has encountered similar comments. She wrote a column about the video and said that she “wasn’t shocked, or even surprised” when she watched it. As a sports journalist, she knows these comments exist “and that they’ll just keep coming, as if it’s part of the job description.”
Do we really want to make dealing with harassing comments a part of the job description for any reporter whose work happens to upset anyone with access to the Internet?
Spain points out in her own column on this issue why these hateful threats affect women more than men. She writes, “Threats mirror the violence perpetrated against women in real life, inspired by misogyny and deep-seated anger rather than a mere frustration with a sports take.” These comments are worse for women because they go beyond taking issue with a journalist’s opinion on the matters of sports; they’re personal.
There is so much hate, and the anonymity of the Internet makes it easier than ever to share it. But to what end?
Hopefully, this video can be a part of that end. I hope it will raise awareness and put a stop to this. We need to take these comments seriously because not every threat is just empty words; sometimes, they're more than mean.
