Baiting the sports trolls
OPINION: A shipment of soap has been sent to New Zealand. It will form part of online troll care packages that also include how to use spell checker on your computer, a voucher for therapy sessions and a giveyourself-an-uppercut kit.
How has our beautiful country become 100% puerile?
‘Don’t read the comments’ they say. I have and been quite disturbed by how some people’s minds work and how unbelievably unimaginative they can be. Even the worst Aussie cricket sledgers are more creative. I’m told some readers took issue with me asking for empathy from our sportspeople last week. I can see why some of you lost your minds over such provocative vocabulary. The word moist must do your head in.
This week my attention has been drawn to a petition asking for Debbie Hockley, one of our greatest ever female cricketers, to be sacked from the Sky Sport commentary team. The language used in the comments wouldn’t be out of place in prison. This is not unusual. The blokes cop it too. Former All Black Justin Marshall has also attracted a petition or two in his time. His anti-fans call him Justine. Brilliant! The only other place you hear such genius put-downs is when you hang with six-year-olds. The difference between comments made about Debbie is the misogynistic aggression that oozes from every syllable, including threats of violence. Not all comments, but enough to make you wonder if parents were banned from giving hugs at certain points over the last few decades.
I too have struggled with listening to the odd commentator but it hasn’t driven me to want them to be slam-dunked by Steven Adams into wet concrete and then wait to watch it harden. No matter how much you pay for your Sky subscription, you cannot tailor the commentary team to your personal tastes. I know it’s hard to believe that, unlike you, the country doesn’t want a team of six men from the 1950s to call every single sporting match but these days there is a push towards more diversity.
Recently when I was in South Africa I listened to the radio cricket commentary. Some of you may need to sit down to read this bit but they had women, not just a woman but women, commentating. Obviously not together, otherwise they would’ve started to discuss shopping. I was surprised their voices weren’t so high that only dogs could hear them. But I guess they’d had a lot of training from male commentators because they didn’t get emotional when South African wickets fell. Hopefully this will make you feel better about New Zealand women commentating on men playing sport. If not, ask women how they coped over the last few decades hearing men commentate on women’s matches.
I realise that for some of you it makes no difference if you’re listening to a man or woman, as long as they’re good at their job. But for people to improve they need to be given opportunities, time and support. Which is why I have been thinking about how society could help toxic trolls become people you might consider talking to without a lawyer present. Maybe they too just need love and guidance to raise the awareness of what they are doing. However, some cannot be saved and others are just abusing people for laughs so, for them, I have thought of alternatives to prison.
If they’re that foulmouthed and disrespectful to women, they could become script writers for US President Donald Trump. He must be running out of ideas for his thousands of unhinged tweets.
Christchurch needs a new stadium so why not send a bunch of trolls to rebuild it for free. They love getting down and dirty so it only seems right that they dig the foundations by hand. They’ll be moving at the same speed as the council has been since the earthquake so the workers won’t be waiting around for decisions to be made. And thought of them bullying each other on the construction site gives me warm fuzzies.
My last idea is to Taser them. Keyboards are set up to shoot electric charges out when abusive comments are sent. I also think this could be a good way to deal with people who litter, queue-jump and steal carparks.
Or we could just ignore them and throw our support behind those they abuse.
Change is happening no matter what they say. The All Blacks producing a video about diversity is a big step in the right direction. Although I don’t think we should discount the Taser.