As Kentucky basketball fan Ashley Judd attended the Wildcats’ SEC Championship game against Arkansas on Sunday, she felt that her team was being victimized by what she considered dirty play on the part of the Razorbacks. As someone who regularly live-tweets during games, she posted a message on Twitter expressing as much.
“I think Arkansas is playing dirty,” she tweeted.
Six seemingly harmless words from a passionate fan of a college basketball team. She soon learned, however, that the lower levels of Twitter never consider anything to be harmless, as she was quickly inundated with insults and threats of rape and other forms of violence. Thankfully, she is not taking these threats lightly and is planning on pressing charges.
“Yesterday I was upset that three Kentucky players were bleeding on the floor,” Judd said. “In my impassioned game moment, I said something that, if I were in a more calm state of mind, I might have phrased differently. I might have said, ‘I feel really disappointed with what seems ultra-aggressive play.’ Instead, I wrote, ‘I think Arkansas is playing dirty.'”
And for that, she was slammed with the worst of the worst that social media has to offer, being called a whore, a c*nt, and having to deal with sexual threats. It’s been a recurring theme for athletes recently. Earlier this month, we reported on the verbal abuse Curt Schilling and his daughter took on Twitter after he proudly tweeted that she would be playing college softball in the fall. He, too, decided that he would not take the abuse lying down and decided to get back at two of the most egregious offenders by calling them out on his personal blog, as well as notifying their parents, teachers, and bosses. The results were actually encouraging as both Twitter users were embarrassed publicly and fired from their jobs.
It’s not clear how many Twitter users Judd had to deal with on Sunday, or for which specific users she’ll be pressing charges. But the mission to out these dregs of social media should be applauded. Seriously, enough is enough.
