Why should we care about anything athletes do off the field?
Never understood why people look to athletes, movie stars, people in power, etc for their opinions on much of anything. Most of them are less informed than the general American and I don’t particularly care what someone who can kick a soccer ball well thinks of the office of the president. I care that they kick the soccer ball well.
If you can’t watch/enjoy an athletic event because you disagree with a players views on politics, that’s pretty freaking weird.
JMO.
JMHO, but I think the internet/social media 1) exposes more opinions than would otherwise be exposed and 2) turbocharges the emotion behind said opinions. Both are still relatively new technologies, and I think as a society we are still working out how to interpret them and just how reflective they are as society as a whole.
Pretend for a second that the telephone and radio didn't exist. Then one day they did and you're listening to a radio call in-show. The first 5 callers you hear are really, really fired up about something that you personally don't feel strongly either way about. At the very least, you're kind of confused and unsettled about it, right? You're probably wondering why "people" are so mad, just how widespread is this belief, etc. However, since both technologies have existed for a long time, we know how to interpret the opinions aired on radio call-in shows and nobody really pays much attention to them, outside of the people calling in and listening.
A relatively small percentage of the population actively consumes social media, and an even smaller percentage of that percentage actually posts content. One day we'll come around and realize that the rantings of people on the internet, the virtue signaling that takes place, etc., are like the radio call-in shows of our age. Over time, the outsized impact social media has will go down. At least I hope it does. Social media exposes you to a wide range of opinions, plus it is instantaneous and immediate. It's like radio call-in shows times a million. Something happens, then you can immediately see what all sorts of people think about it. I think the nature of it works people up into a tizzy.
I really don't think there's more hate, anger, or division, today than in previous years. It's just that today the hate, anger, and division is more easily and more widely aired. Instead of simply having a thought and telling it to your buddies, you can go on Twitter and broadcast it to anybody who wants to see it.
