Seeking pest control for women against trolls
"On the Internet," according to a famous New Yorker cartoon caption, "no one knows you're a dog." No, but some internet users amazingly turn into skunks.
That's a mild description of the mean and nasty tweets that male volunteers read to two Chicago-based female sports journalists in a four-minute video that went viral after it was produced and posted Tuesday by sports website Just Not Sports (JustNotSports.com).
The two Chicago-based women -- Julie DiCaro, a radio host and Sports Illustrated reporter, and Sarah Spain, an espnW reporter and ESPN Radio host -- knew the vulgarity of the tweets beforehand because they had received them. The male volunteers did not.
You can tell by their obvious surprise and discomfort as they haltingly and apologetically read the insults to women sitting right in front of them:
"You need to be hit in the head with a hockey puck and killed."
"Hopefully, this skank Julie DiCaro is Bill Cosby's next victim."
"I hope your boyfriend beats you."
They get worse. They make ample use of the B-word, the C-words and other obscene words that aim to wound women.
What, I wondered, is with these nut case tweetheads? Don't they have mothers? Sisters? Girlfriends? Wives? Daughters?
As a public service message, the video illustrates the roles of gender and anonymity in the dark side of the Internet. It is easier to vent your sexism, racism and other social sicknesses when you're hiding cowardly behind the Web's curtain of anonymity.
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