While watching the Everton/Manchester United game on April 23rd, there was a quote that: "There's cameras everywhere these days." After my previous blog entry stating that there's often an invasion of privacy involved whether these people are small-scale athletes or professional athletes, there are actually more current stories coming up in lieu of this. Everything they say or do is highly publicized and rarely taken as a grain of salt.
Two prime examples as of late have been Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers and Wayne Rooney of Manchester United. Since a camera was right on their face whilst saying something questionable (i.e. a homophobic slur) and they get a fine slammed on them. Believe me, if I had a camera on me while I was driving, I don't think I'd have money anymore and I wouldn't be allowed outside of a jail cell. Just because these athletes are at celebrity status doesn't mean that every action they do or word they say should be thrown out into the open. Has anyone ever heard of "human nature" or anything else like that? We're blurring the line again, people! It's absolutely natural for someone to scream large amounts of explicatives and what have you when he or she is angry. There's actually scientific evidence that if you swear loudly when injured (i.e. stubbing one's toe) it'll decrease the amount of pain experienced. It's also normal for someone to hit a pillow (or one's father-in-law, ha ha ha...not) or scream absolute gibberish when one is angry and is trying to get an overall message across. Sometimes it doesn't work, but boy does it feel good.
The point I'm trying to get across is: why do we care about what comes out of athletes' mouths? I guarantee you that not all of it is crucial to our survival and relevant to what we actually care about in our daily lives. Of course some of it isn't very nice stuff to say, but c'mon, don't we all say it to ourselves at some point? If everyone watched us on TMZ on or ESPN, we would all be hated upon and we'd all be getting fines. Homophobic slurs are a very touchy subject, but I bet you as much money in my savings account that there are other athletes, celebrities, politicians, and human beings that say the same (if not worse) stuff than Rooney and Bryant have said in the public eye. It might diminish the idolization by younger children, but does that mean that the people who said the slurs are bad people? No! Everyone makes mistakes. You shouldn't have to shun them along with the fining.
Does anyone remember this?? He got in trouble for it, but does that mean he's a bad person for saying that? He's a humanitarian, for cripes' sake. One f-bomb isn't going to turn him into Bin Laden (ha ha ha, I just made a relevant current event comparison).
Anyway, we're making senseless news stories about extraordinary people making ordinary mistakes. I'm pretty sure people are being forced to care about stuff like this just because it's on the news or something. It really does irritate people like me though. I honestly don't think anyone truly cares about my opinion--nor should people really care about what athletes have to say about an issue unless if they're incredibly familiar with it. Okay, people swear too. They're people. Move on with life.
You people make me want to roll a wheel of cheese down a hill and watch you chase after it.
--AZ
