By Aaron Williams
In sociology, the term “cultural lag” is used to describe a situation in which technological innovation or change moves too quickly for culture to keep up with and form ideas about. In almost every instance of cultural lag, problems and conflict are bound to arise.
The age of Facebook, Twitter and MySpace has college athletes facing a new kind of cultural lag. Those of us who claim to be college sports fans should be appalled by it. But instead we are contributing and even participating in it. I’m talking specifically about the online harassment and heckling that occurs on high-profile college players’ social media pages, typically following a poor performance on the field, court, track or pitch.
We’re taught early on in our primary education that bullying and harassment of other people is wrong. And our society as a whole is very intolerant to the public degradation of individuals. It is simply not socially acceptable. So why then, as fans, do some think it’s OK to go to a collegiate athlete’s Facebook profile and post vulgar, offensive and insulting responses to a lackluster performance? The content of these posts is definitely not something the average heckler would be willing to run up and tell a player to their face after a game. That is, unless you’re stupid enough to tell a disgruntled, 6-foot-9 power forward face-to-face how much you thought his post play sucked that game, or stand three feet away from a frustrated 300-pound left tackle and tell him how he’s lazy and good-for-nothing for missing that block.
Yet these comments are typed and published onto the walls and pages of college players, often from the comfort of the agitator’s computer chair in the safety of his home. How brave these fans must be to speak their mind through the Internet! And this behavior is displayed from fan bases across the board. Take, for example, Samardo Samuels’ Facebook page being lit up with negative comments following a rough performance in last year’s game against the University of Connecticut. And as for the other fan base that occupies the state, University of Kentucky fans notoriously hounded freshmen John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins via social media for their first loss of the season at the University of South Carolina last year.
True college sports fans should never participate in the cyber harassment of their favorite team’s players. Behaving in this way only hurts the player’s confidence, makes them feel unsupported and undermines team chemistry. A player who has suffered through a bad game does not need to hear anything negative or critical from fans. No one better understands how his mistakes cost the team a victory than the receiver who couldn’t make that catch or the guard who made that costly turnover. He doesn’t need to read it a hundred times over when he gets back to his dorm room or apartment.
These students range in age from roughly 19 to 23. Keep in mind that is the same age as most of us. Imagine if you studied all night for that big biology test and went in the next morning and bombed it – absolute train wreck and you know it. You hand it in, slump your shoulders and head back to your dorm. You open up your laptop when you get back and you see you have 109 new notifications and 67 new inbox messages. To your dismay, they are all from complete strangers telling you what a waste you are, questioning how you could have possibly missed problem number eleven and telling you how you’ll never make it into medical school.
The metaphor may be a little extreme, but it’s a pretty accurate one when it comes to what college athletes have to deal with. True fans need to be supportive of their team at all times. If you absolutely must post something on a player’s profile following a loss they had a hand in, make sure it’s positive. True fans raise their players up, not try to tear them down.
