The internet has no problem with widespread outrage. Any and every topic has the potential to be turned into a rallying point due to the empowerment of individual voice on the internet. It usually takes just the right voice or the right incident to make something spark outrage.
The problem is, the normal person is now inundated with so much information that, at times, the masses pass over something important because it wasn’t shown to them in the proper way. The proper way, for most people, is video. Without this concrete and indisputable evidence, the event in question is rarely discussed a sufficient amount because there are so many more things that have proper evidence and warrant a conversation.
The intensity and power of the internet are balanced out only by its brevity. Internet concern is a lot like a match in this way; it burns with a quick intensity but then is often gone before it’s able to do its complete job. People rarely have enough energy to care about things if they are not undeniably wrong or seen firsthand.
This exact problem was illustrated on Oct. 17th when it came to light that teammates Bobby Portis and Nikola Mirotic got into an altercation that ultimately landed Mirotic in the hospital.
One would think that an event of such magnitude would shock the public into serious conversation. Any punch that lands an individual in the hospital, especially one that caused the recipient of said punch to remain on the floor for multiple seconds directly afterward, is abnormally serious. Yet, there was little to no public worry about the condition of Mirotic.
Instead, as the internet is always keen on doing, it saw jokes sweep through Twitter with the same force and lack of wit that you would expect to find on the pun-loving social media site.
Jokes about the fight, jokes about Mirotic, jokes about Portis. All while Mirotic could have been in intensive care with a serious, potentially life-threatening injury. Luckily, this was not the case. Mirotic has recovered well and will be back on the court sometime this week. That’s beside the point, though, because nobody knew the details of his condition at the time.
The problem here is not the absence of swift and harsh rhetoric directed at Portis, but the lack of sympathy for Mirotic. Because the fight was not able to be seen in all its devastating aggression, it was treated almost as though it had never happened.
When Gordon Hayward went down with a season-ending injury, there was (rightfully) widespread support and somberness. The injury was watched live. The reactions were viewed live. Every basketball fan witnessed the severity of it. The injury was not the reason for the reaction, however – the viewership of the injury was.
If the same injury happened behind closed doors, you wouldn’t see “Lord carry him now” posts about the star small forward. It would get its two hours of disappointment and then everyone would move on.
It’s known that Marshawn Lynch was sitting for the national anthem long before Colin Kaepernick did, but no one cared because no one saw it. It was not broadcast on every news channel, so nobody gave it any thought.
“Pics or it didn’t happen” has become a popular and often-used phrase to explain to someone that you won’t believe them until you have physical, visual proof.
Many distrust information from the media until there is concrete evidence that they can either listen to or watch. This isn’t because the informers are getting worse but because there are too many. In decades past, the local newspaper and select radio stations were the only sources of news, so the information they gave was trusted mostly out of necessity.
Now, there is so much news coming from so many outlets that you can selectively choose what to believe in and what not to.
Clearly, this is not an issue that exists solely in sports, but many examples can be found in sports. Domestic violence was a larger issue amongst NFL players than what was allowed to be discussed, but it wasn’t until a disappointingly aggressive video of Ray Rice hitting his wife in an elevator and dragging her body out that it became a true talking point and an addressable issue.
Ray Rice is still not allowed back into the NFL and domestic violence incidents are now treated much differently. But it took a video surfacing to understand that it was a problem.
The internet’s jovial nature is often fine when discussing a sport that revolves around physical marvels attempting to get an orange sphere through a net. It only becomes a problem when serious topics are inserted into this silly game.
Many have trouble with allowing the serious into their positive escapism. People deal with enough serious issues in their day-to-day lives; adding those issues to their recreation is counterproductive for them.
However, you cannot be selective in your attention when it comes to serious issues. Hospitalization is among those serious issues. Fortunately, Nikola Mirotic is returning to the court and isn’t in a more serious predicament. Next time something like this falls into the forefront of the news for its half-day of intrigue, don’t wait for the video to consider its real-life ramifications.
