This is not really a story about football, nor is it a story about what the rules should be in football. I am not one of those who complains about the “wussification of sports,” and I find some of you who do complain about this to be complete morons.
This is a story, rather, about the way things are presented to you as “controversial” when in fact they are not, and you’re only told that because the person writing about it has a bug up their butt about the topic and wants you to think other people do too.
Andrew Sendejo, a safety for the best team in football, showed up at practice last week wearing a hat that reads “MAKE FOOTBALL VIOLENT AGAIN.” This is obviously Sendejo’s commentary on the NFL’s recent rule changes that make it harder to get away with certain kinds of hits, especially since this is partly a response to a hit last year by Sendejo’s teammate Anthony Barr – which was perfectly clean and legal, but which injured the NFL’s overrated golden boy pansy Aaron Rodgers, and thus had to be banned for all future time.
Sendejo is paid to lay hits on opposing players, and understandably doesn’t care for rules that make penalties more likely when he does so. So he made his feelings know by wearing a hat with a slogan that reminds some people of a certain president, and just like that his hat was tabbled with the “controversial” label:
Minnesota Vikings safety Andrew Sendejo wore a hat that read “Make Football Violent Again” during the team’s training camp practice Friday as the NFL begins to implement a new rule focused on eliminating helmet-first contact.
Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com passed along comments Sendejo made after the practice session.
“It fits good and it’s black and I like it,” he said. “It’s got a good message.”
Sendejo said it’s not the first time he’s worn the unique lid and added the message it sends “applies more now” with the new rule in place, per Cronin.
Notice how the media try to create the impression there’s a huge hubbub about something, when in reality there isn’t.
First, you write a news story reporting that something happened even though there’s no reason to think the event has much news value. A guy wore a hat. Why is that news? Why are you writing a story about it?
Because it’s supposed to be understood that the hat choice was beyond the pale. If Roger Goodell shows up at the Super Bowl wearing a heat that reads “CRIPPLES ARE PATHETIC,” no one needs to explain to you why it’s a news story. Stories like this one about Sendejo’s hat carry the exact same implication, even if the fact of the story itself doesn’t really justify it’s treatment as a matter of controversy.
Another aspect of a real controversy is that ordinary people are getting upset and arguing about it without having to be prompted – and their distress is genuine. None of that is happening here. Normal everyday people are not running around wringing their hands over Andrew Sendejo’s hat. They are not upset about it. They do not object to it. They don’t think it matters much. They are not offended, hurt, injured or triggered.
Yet you’ll be told there’s a “controversy,” with the implication that people all over the place are in sackcloth and ashes, waiting for the apology that might one day stem the flow of their tears.
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They are not. No one cares. Yet many times the media have sold the public on the idea that something his “controversial” when the thing doesn’t actually bother anyone but the media. They report after they decide, and you follow their lead because what they’re telling you seems credible to you.
Why would they lie?
They would lie because they don’t like the way most Americans think, so they want to convince you that you’re out of the mainstream and that you’d better get in line if you don’t want to be marginalized. Everyone’s upset about this hat! You’d better be too!
Oh my God! That hat! It’s so terrible! People are so upset!
No they’re not. No one cares. Don’t let inventors of phony controversies convince you that you have to.
This is not really a story about football, nor is it a story about what the rules should be in football. I am not one of those who complains about the “wussification of sports,” and I find some of you who do complain about this to be complete morons.
This is a story, rather, about the way things are presented to you as “controversial” when in fact they are not, and you’re only told that because the person writing about it has a bug up their butt about the topic and wants you to think other people do too.
