Those of you who are longtime readers of this blog know how seriously I take the Olympics (nerrrrrrd alert). You also know how seriously I take the media when a torches-and-pitchforks mentality is involved (see: Rodriguez, Alexander Emmanuel, pre-steroid scandal). So whence the two meet, it's like my brain starts imploding upon itself, and I am all but powerless against the urge to blog about it.
It all started today when Vicki and I were discussing McKayla Maroney's silver-medal-winning vault, and her ensuing looks of disappointment/frustration and how people were calling her out for what they perceived as her being ungrateful. Which is funny, because as I watched last night's broadcast - and not going off of pooled-together pictures and videos - I was surprised how composed she was after it all, and yes, saw her hugging her competitors with my own two eyes. Then it took another step for me this afternoon when I started seeing several websites calling her out on her facial expressions and lack of proper "sportsmanship" because she didn't give a big-ass hug to one gymnast and dared to look tight-faced at certain points. Because, you know, if she'd stood there on the podium blubbering, that would've been okay.
What I really take offense to is this labeling of her as a "brat" and a "mean girl" because of pieced-together footage (i.e., people making judgments after not seeing the entire thing played out). Now, I don't know her, and therefore I don't know if she isn't a "mean girl" in real life. But you know what? You don't know that she IS one, either. To just assume and name-call is irresponsible, especially given how quickly memes catch on on the internet these days. And especially given that she's so young. Because I'm sure we all had boatloads of grace under pressure, which this girl apparently "lacks," when we were her age.
Oh, yes.
Even more bothersome is that McKayla Maroney went from Girl Who Landed One of the Most Beautiful Vaults of All-Time — Here, Look at My Fanboy/girl-y GIF Collection of It If You Don't Believe Me! to Bitchface Gymanast Who is Ungrateful for a Silver Medal, Oh, and She's a Mean Girl. And you know this for a fact because she twitched her nose to the side during the medals ceremony (and we'll just ignore the pics of her actually smiling afterward). It's not only jarring because the change in attitude happened over the span of a few days, but because people are taking equal delight in the tear-down. It shouldn't surprise me, given how this has happened since the beginning of time, but it still is kind of gross. There's breathless praise and breathless scorn (why, yes, scorn can be breathless too), and somewhere in the middle is a rational truth - but that's unfortunately too boring for most websites, I guess.
And what's even MORE frustrating is that she clearly knew she beat herself here - she wasn't pointing fingers or playing the blame game like an entitled diva. It wasn't a scoring decision from a shady judge that put a puss on her face, or a teammate faltering at the wrong time whom she just HAD to show up in bratty fashion - it was her own fault. And, as Vicki pointed out, she was quoted as saying as much afterward. She, herself, thought she didn't deserve gold. Yet other people? Are still saying the color of the medal is the problem here for her and not the torture of "What could I have done differently?" Because the memes don't mention that - it wouldn't further their agenda, be it humorous or "informative" or whatever, you see.
And even if she WAS disappointed in her silver medal - what's it to us? I mean, we can't be the ones who bitch about the "snowflake generation" — which Ms. Maroney is entrenched in — and how they're all told how special they are and that there's never a loser and everyone gets a trophy, even if they don't try hard (and then turn out entitled as all get out and are unleashed on an older workforce and...SIGH)... and then turn around and call this girl a "brat" because we perceive her to — gasp — be annoyed that she didn't perform as well as she thought she could have. After she worked toward this goal for her entire life. Like, how many of us can say that we sacrificed our childhoods and teen years to become the best at what we do, snowflake generation or older? And then fell flat on our ass in front of god knows how many millions of people? At sixteen years old?
No, me neither.
But thank god there's the internet. Because where would these athletes be if not for an army of arm-chair Olympians here to help police their emotions?
SIGH.
