Posted on by Stephanie's Corner

Social Media And Athletes

You’re an athlete, I don’t have to tell you the importance of using common sense on social media.  There’s such a thing as having your tweet or post backfire and cause you a headache of issues.  There are countless reasons why a professional athlete might be interested in using social media – if they are the actual ones doing the posting and not leaving it up to their PR people, which I find is a mistake and then some.

Some of the reasons why they “think” they should use a platform are quite simple- attract media attention, build a brand or specific reputation, provide exposure for sponsors, or even to let fans get an inside glimpse of their lives.  But…. Are those actually good reasons for being on social media in the first place?

They miss the boat on what exactly social media can do for them besides gaining sponsorships with corporations.  First and foremost it is called “Social Media” not Anti-social media.  Most professional athletes fail to connect with actual people and just respond to other celebrities and athletes.  They could in turn learn a lot from just connecting online with fans that support them!  Just a little response like, “Thank you for your support- it means a lot…” and then add a teams hashtag would make that connection to the fan base even stronger.

The next reason to use social media as an athlete would be to inspire or motivate others. There is the 80/20 rule that most don’t follow and that is 80% of your content should be motivating, inspiring, fun, educating and engaging and 20% sell.  This goes for EVERY business using social media, not just athletes.  Most athletes miss the opportunity to use social media to tell their own story- where they grew up, how they got to where they are, etc. On social media an athlete can tell a real-life story with ups and downs, comebacks, setbacks, tests and triumphs. It’s not all glamorous. 

Here’s what I rarely see athletes do: They don’t Show themselves in action both on and off the field of play: While it’s important to show how they compete,  they decide to post pictures of waiting at airports, training in the gym, getting on a bus, etc.  They don’t  Let Their personality shine: Many athletes are so scared of social media controversy that they edit their accounts down to the point that they feel inauthentic; fake people, not keeping it real. Remember, personality can’t be photoshopped. The most popular social media accounts feel authentic. There’s no robot posting for them, hence why I can’t stand it when athletes and celebrities let their PR department, who knows squat about social media, post for them.  They don’t hire the correct people to bring out the realness of the person, so it feels as if a robot is If else you may lose your followers in translation.

Finally, this tip goes for all who use social media: Use correct spelling and grammar. I know, I have heard from many folks on this topic and the usual response is, “It’s just social media!” That many be true but  using correct spelling and grammar goes a long way, especially in showing others that you are professional and that you care.  Also, when posting limit the times you use abbreviations,  or else you may lose your followers in translation. ( Especially when we all are reading it and go, “What the hell is he talking about?” )

 

 

 

Posted on by Stephanie's Corner

Sex, Lies, and Abuse: How the #MeToo Won’t Change Anything

If you ever read my review on “Fifty Shades of Grey,” then you know where I will be going with this article. If you never did read it, let me paraphrase it here for you: “Christian Grey has sadistic sex that leaves Anastasia sometimes bleeding and too bruised to move. The fact that Fifty Shades has taken eroticism violence against women and re-branded it as romance, is something of complete irony. Love is not abuse, and abuse is not love. Just because our society today have erased the shame of hooking up and joke openly about adult entertainment, doesn’t mean that we should fall for what Christian Grey truly is: an abuser. What the movie “Fifty Shades” wants women to believe is that women can fix violent, controlling men by being obedient and loving. That in a nutshell is false. It’s not okay for a man to use sex to control, manipulate and introduce pain to a woman. Christian Grey believes the physical pain a man would inflict on a woman is not as bad as the pain of losing him. Not cool. Not cool at all.”

I can tell you that Fifty Shades of Grey grossed $166.2 million in North America and $404.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $571 million, against a budget of $40 million! And most of the women who went to see this movie, bought merchandise and the book, NEVER complained about sexual harassment, sexual abuse or sexual assault. They were also part of this #MeToo movement, which is hypocrisy at it’s finest.

The #MeToo movement has gone from bad to worse. It doesn’t help women at all. Instead it takes the core part of what true feminism is; equality in the workplace, and make it even harder for women. What man in his right mind is going to now want to hire a woman, let alone be left alone with a woman in his office? And what is worse is the fact that some women are taking advantage of the situation by using their sexual relationships they have had in the past with men they worked with, relationships that were consented. Not to mention that sleeping with a boss or co-worker, didn’t get them to where they wanted in the workplace or that the relationship ended badly, they now turn around and say that they were sexually assaulted. Some have also been proven to have falsified evidence to say that they were abused forty years ago.

That’s another thing. If you are abused, you don’t wait forty years and then turn around and say, “Oh, I was afraid for my career at the time, or that I didn’t think people would believe me.” And I am supposed to believe you now? The woman’s health and mental state should ALWAYS come before career. And in that forty years that you wait, you let the guy develop a pattern of behavior. Besides the fact that people do change over that amount of time as well. I can personally tell you that I am not the same woman I was twenty years ago. I can only imagine how these men must feel who are being accused of this, forty years later. I don’t care if it was five years ago, either. Time to come out and say something is the moment it happens, not when the “best opportunity” for the woman to come forward.

That is wrong on so many levels.

Also, has it ever occurred to some people, that willingly sleeping with a boss or co-worker is not assault? The only time it is assault is if you are blackmailed to do so. Then it’s classified as rape. When it is not consented sex, and the man continues to do so, that is considered rape. Rape is, never okay. I repeat, rape is never okay. Now we as society are still dealing with rape, as being one of the highest percentage of crimes year after year, but the media doesn’t talk about it. You hear stories on the news, but there is never a discussion on any talk show of how to curb this crime. Rape kits are also to blame for why most guys “get away with it”

Last week in my of my hockey groups, this guy posted a picture of a woman in the front row behind the bench, wearing a low cut white shirt, along with her coat, opened, and a hat on. You can bet that there were sexist comments, as you would think there would be, on a post like that. The bottom line of why I bring it up is simply this:

This girl wore that shirt on purpose. It’s obvious. But the funny thing is, she’ll wear that shirt, be noticed for all the wrong reasons, and then turn around and sue guys for sexual harassment. (I’m making a point, not saying that this girl in the photo will do that.) That’s what’s wrong with it. Not the fact that she set guys up to even look at her. She totally knew the deal. The sad part is she used her body for that attention instead of her mind. When women stop falling for the “Let’s dress a certain way to be noticed,” crap, then maybe a woman can be appreciated for her brains, not her boobs.

On WFAN’s Facebook page, which is totally being bombarded with negative posts about it’s new afternoon show. I saw a few very sexists comments that talked about how women do’t know how to talk about sports. That women have no place in that category. See; double standard is still alive. Men think they know “everything” and that women are “dumb, stupid, out of touch, or belong elsewhere.”  Maybe when men’s perceptions of women change, women will change. After all, both sexes tend to do things to please the other instead of doing things that please themselves.  We try so hard to make everyone else around us happy, that we forget that the most important person’s happiness is our own.

If that is the one lesson that we all can learn from #MeToo, then I hope most learn it. Remember, respect is earned, not a given.  You need to respect yourself first and foremost if you ever want someone else to reciprocate that respect.  I hope in 2018, the media makes a woman famous for expanding her mind, not her breasts.

Posted on by Stephanie's Corner

The NFL and Hollywood: The definition of hypocrites

“….a women’s responsibility not to “provoke” domestic violence.” Those were Stephen A. Smith’s actual words on ESPN in 2014, in reference to Ray Rice’s two game suspension from the NFL for knocking out his wife, Janay, in an Atlantic City resort elevator. (Meanwhile, for those who don’t follow the NFL, Robert Mathis, another football player, was suspended for four games for taking Clomid, to help him & his wife have a third child in 2014.)

To say that a woman is “responsible” for a man’s actions is not only absurd, it is sexist. Let me enlighten ALL men that, a women doesn’t “ask” to get beaten and in the same breath, she doesn’t “ask” or “invite” any man to rape her either. The only actions a woman is responsible for are her own. Period.

Not the cold hard facts on domestic violence: The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that 1 in 4 women will be victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives, 1.3 million women are assaulted by their partner every year, 85% of domestic violence reported is against women. It is estimated that 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend to 3 million women are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year. Women ages 20-24 are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence. Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women—more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. Domestic violence victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work per year in the US alone—the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs.

Domestic Abuse starts off small. #1 FACT: Most domestic violence incidents are never reported. Domestic violence isn’t just an argument every once in a while. Domestic violence is an ongoing pattern of abusive behavior when one person chooses to control the relationship through force or intimidation. Fear and embarrassment are the reasons that many women do not wish to report the abuse or do anything to stop it. This is the reason most abused women stay in those relationships and blame themselves for the abuse.

And in the case of millions of actors and actresses not coming forward about being sexual harassed, or raped, until years later, the reason highlights itself. They were afraid of being blackballed in Hollywood.  How much further will this topic go? Will we just forget about sexual abuse, sexual harassment,  and sexism when this Weinstein story blows over? Because that is usually what happens. We never “fix” problems, or come up with solutions. All we do is talk things to death and then move on.

Same could be said about the NFL now. They are worst hypocrites. They make all their players wear pink for “Breast Cancer Awareness” and then they allow players to get second chance after second chance when they commit a crime against a woman.  They are afraid to lay down rules as we see with the National Anthem, as we are witnessing. Can you imagine the powerhouse the NFL could really be if they had strict rules that were enforced, educated the players on domestic violence, and then turned around and educated the public?  Can you imagine what true role models those in Hollywood would be in they stood up against sexual crimes, in spite of their own careers?

We can all help eliminate domestic violence and sexual crimes. Can we stop it? Probably not 100% but we can educate others after we educate ourselves first.  We should do this because every child, woman and man deserves that, no questions asked.

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Posted on by Stephanie's Corner

The President vs The Players

Not every cop is a bad cop. Why can’t people understand that? Ironically people don’t like to be grouped but think it’s okay to put all police officers in the same category. Protesting the national anthem isn’t about cops, it stands for the soldiers who fought for our Country. And it does NOTHING to fix the problem.

The players have this platform and this is all they “came up” with? How about going into the community and talking to people and police? How about bringing people together? Nope, that’s too hard and complicated. It’s easier to look like an uneducated fool than it is to actually put together a plan to bring together people from all backgrounds. This just separates people even further, it doesn’t bind any of us together.

The NFL is the only place where men who kill dogs, people, abuse women and drive drunk, still get make millions. A regular “Joe” would never be given that opportunity.  MLB and the NBA are other places where they get to make millions playing a sport that should be entertaining us. Adding politics to the game, that we the people turn to, to escape the world and it’s problems, is only going to add insult to injury.

Oh, but I hear players yelling, that they have a right to peacefully protest. That right shouldn’t be exhibited in the forum they are doing it in. They’re athletes and they live extravagant lifestyles because they’re afforded that right in the country they seemingly hate.  If I did that at work, I would be fired.

We have people always talking about “Separation of Church and State.” Now how about, let’s have “Separation of sports and politics.”  Politics and sports are two different things but they’re insisting on intermingling the two by doing their protests. If you feel inclined to protest, do it on your own time.  By the way, the NFL fine players for wearing their socks wrong or not tucking in their jersey but they can’t make them stand for the anthem? Talk about hypocrisy.

Maybe society should be look for ways to overcome the problems we have, instead of creating more problems. If the players truly love our Nation and the freedoms that our veterans have put themselves through in order for U.S. to have such a grand Nation, then we should all stand showing respect and honor for our anthem. Period.

UPDATED:

Actually there is a rule that says they aren’t allowed to show personal messages:
ARTICLE 8. PERSONAL MESSAGES
Throughout the period on game-day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience (including in pregame warm-ups, in the bench area, and during postgame interviews in the locker room or on the field), players are prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office. Items to celebrate anniversaries or memorable events, or to honor or commemorate individuals, such as helmet decals, and arm bands and jersey patches on players’ uniforms, are prohibited unless approved in advance by the League office. All such items approved by the League office, if any, must relate to team or League events or personages. The League will not grant permission for any club or player to wear, display, or otherwise convey messages, through helmet decals, arm bands, jersey patches, or other items affixed to game uniforms or equipment, which relate to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns. Further, any such approved items must be modest in size, tasteful, non-commercial, and non-controversial; must not be worn for more than one football season; and if approved for use by a specific team, must not be worn by players on other teams in the League.