Women have taken to the internet to slam ESPN after the sports channel pulled a disgusting move and sexualized two young women while broadcasting the national college baseball championship game between Tennessee and Texas A&M.
During the game, the cameras suddenly turned away from the action on the field and focused on two audience members. The camera lingered on two women who were enjoying ice cream while watching the game. The women seemingly weren’t aware that they were being filmed and continued eating while looking at the field, while the broadcasters added commentary about the quickly melting ice cream, like “You gotta get it before it melts, it’s liquid” and “A night like tonight, you’re working fast.”
Of course, the incident didn’t end there. The footage quickly made its way to social media and went viral. Soon, thousands of men took ESPN’s disgusting invitation to sexualize the moment and began leaving vile, sexually explicit comments and messages for the two women. The women didn’t consent to being filmed, nor did they purposefully say or do anything remotely sexual in nature. They were just two women enjoying a game and eating ice cream, unaware of the creepy camera operators and broadcasters. Now, they are being inundated with sexual harassment online. The incident prompted one of the women to speak out, as well as countless other women who were sickened by the incident.
TikTokers slam ESPN for its disgusting act
One of the women goes by Annie J on TikTok and has made a series of videos about the incident. At first, she thought it was funny and just posted about how ESPN put her “on full blast” and asked, “Why did it go on for so long?”
However, then she began to see comments and stitches from creepy men on the internet, who were comparing her to the Hawk Tuah Girl and making other inappropriate comments. She called out one user, Corey Caddell, who recorded the footage on his phone and posted a video saying, “I think ‘hawk tuah’s about to get replaced,” not even knowing if the women he was talking about were adults or minors.
She has also made several videos filled with countless screenshots of men commenting the most vile things they can think of under the videos. In another five-minute video, she addressed the incident further, pointing out how ESPN obviously knew what it was doing and what it was inviting in by broadcasting that footage with commentary. She described what it was like to wake up to being called the next Hawk Tuah Girl and to read repulsive comments from men who have their wives and kids in their profile pictures. Annie also made an excellent point about how women already don’t feel welcome in the sports world and how this incident only confirms that they aren’t allowed to do something as simple as attend a game.
On top of that, she explained that she and her friend had only sat down 15 seconds before they started being filmed. It makes the incident even creepier, knowing that the camera operators were just closely watching these two women instead of the game, waiting for the moment they let their guards down. Sadly, many men have taken to victim-blaming in comments on her video, saying it was her fault for leaving her house, eating ice cream, or even because she didn’t use a spoon. They also tried to weaponize the fact that she initially found it funny and made videos claiming her own videos were evidence she was “enjoying the attention.”
Fortunately, many women have also spoken out to support Annie and her friend, as well as to slam ESPN and the countless creepy men commenting on and sharing the footage. Many have explained that the incident is precisely why women say they’d rather meet a bear in the woods instead of a man because men are actually trying to defend the fact that they have no self-control. According to them, women just should stay home because men can’t go even 15 seconds without sexualizing them. There are some men genuinely arguing that women need to carefully think about how they’ll be perceived and scan their surroundings for men before eating food, as if that’s an easier solution than just expecting men to act like decent humans.
Many are also calling for consequences for the ESPN camera operators and broadcasters, saying they knew exactly what they were doing.
The incident isn’t just disgusting but also scary, as it highlights how women can literally just be existing, and men will still find a way to harass and objectify them. It’s also alarming how many people believe the women are at fault because they left their houses and chose to buy ice cream. It is not a woman’s responsibility to constantly be on the lookout for creepy men and to have to consider how everything they do might look to a perverted mind. It’s men’s responsibility to be better and let women live their lives. Perhaps, instead of throwing temper tantrums every time a woman chooses the bear, men should try going a few seconds without adding more reasons for women to make that choice.
