Jones rink gets bad dose of the Internet trolls
People behind computer ‘ masks’ rip curling team for not winning gold
“Your an idiot.”
One day, a grammar expert with a degree in psychology will finally establish the long- suspected link between abusive online feedback and a failure to understand the apostrophe, or the possessive case in general.
The scholar will examine thousands of rude emails, tweets, and Facebook comments, delve into the root causes of these crude, angry missiles and conclude that in a vast majority of instances, the author’s rage has sprung from his ( or her, but almost always his) inability to distinguish between there, their and they’re, your and you’re, its and it’s. That must be it. In the meantime, as some kindly soul should explain to Jill Officer — who throws second stones for Jennifer Jones’s Winnipeg- based Olympic- champion women’s curling team — it is actually therapeutic to have a printout of the catch- all “Your an idiot” message, in block capital letters, blown up and mounted on a handy wall, as a reminder to consider the source when tempted to take the trolls’ insults to heart.
Team Jones, which rolled undefeated through the 2014 Sochi Olympics and then won this year’s Scotties national title, had the unmitigated gall to lose to Switzerland in the final of last week’s world championship. Actually, the Canadians lost all three meetings against the Swiss so it wasn’t any chance mishap that caused them to finish second.
But as Officer lamented on the Global News website, the reaction to their failure to win it all, though mostly supportive, also included the now- inevitable spate of vitriolic comments, and made her wonder why. What drives these people?
Does it make them feel better to rub salt into an open wound? Do they think she and Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes and Dawn McEwen weren’t trying ?
“It’s pretty common knowledge that losing sucks,” Officer wrote. “Our team knows that and so do our fans, which is why all the support we have received both online and in person has been so great and amazing.
“But … I am left wondering why there are still those few people who sit behind the mask of their computers and insist on being rude, mean and downright hurtful to not only us, but anyone who lives in the public eye.”
Her story on Global’s site was artfully laid out to protect the identities of the Facebook louts, although the first line of a post from one Bill Mracek that began: “Aw, ‘ little Jenny Jones’ and her Team lost?” survived the camouflage. Well, Jill. Get in line. First of all, you broke the golden rule of the interactive Internet, which all writers know: “Never, ever, read the comments.”
Many of them are fired from heavy cover by people who feel secure in the anonymity provided by a made- up name or Twitter handle, and many of their authors have very few followers, which at least is somewhat reassuring.
But prolonged exposure to the stupidity and crassness of the trolls is a depressing reminder that there are a lot of sadistic dimwits in the world, with too much time on their hands.
It’s better not to know what the lunkheads are saying, although there is a second option, the one that Calgary Flames executive Brian Burke chose in suing 18 anonymous tweeters who posted comments in 2013 suggesting he was having an extra- marital affair and had fathered a child by a sports reporter.
Former Major League pitching star Curt Schilling took matters into his own hands in early March after he tweeted congratulations to his 17- year- old daughter on being accepted into college and starting her softball career.
Schilling, who admittedly is a fairly polarizing figure with some oddball beliefs, lost it when his congratulatory message drew a series of obscene, sexuallyexplicit tweets from various males, stating what they would do, or like to do, to his underage daughter.
It was awful, it was obscene, and Schilling hunted the trolls down and published their names and occupations in a 1,700- word essay with the subtitle: “There are repercussions to your actions in the real world.”
Some were students at the college. He got them suspended, or kicked out. Some were adults. He got at least one man fired.
“I know every one of their names,” Schilling said on the Dan Patrick Show, adding that he intended to pursue criminal charges against the offenders. “I know where they went to school. I know their parents. I know all of it. I’m not going to have any problem with evidence.”
Nothing that serious befell Team Jones. They’ve been on top so long, no doubt some curling fans are tired of them, or never liked them in the first place. Officer acknowledged that.
Worse things have been posted on Twitter about other highprofile athletes, and have elicited no reaction.
But some fans’ instantaneous delight in someone’s mistake, someone’s failure, is the modern price of a public persona. Only the very brave or the very foolhardy engage with the trolls.
The rest of us are well advised to grow thicker skin. And never read the comments.