I do not think anyone is suggesting anything about Suni or anyone else not being entitled to their feelings.
And that is my whole point about looking outside of the gymternet bubble. Bo Nix was the highly sought after 5* QB, son of another famous Auburn football player. If you are from the south, and from SEC football country, I can guarantee that you know who Bo Nix is, and you would also know that the starting QB at a major college program in the SEC is under way more scrutiny than any gymnast, Olympic gold or not.
This is my point, honestly I just get more irritated at seemingly knee-jerk, group-think type reaction from the gymnternet whenever something like this comes out, and everyone immediately goes to their tsk-tsk, can you believe what happened to her! The school, the teammates, the fans are just horrible to do such awful things....etc etc. All I am trying to say is that its a nuanced situation and people probably should be more nuanced in their responses.I know you’re not necessarily going to be that interested in my opinion, cuuf, as I barely post on the board, but I hope you don’t mind too much if I share it anyway. The reason I wanted to speak up is because I definitely don’t think Suni is perfect! That’s not a contributing factor in my analysis of her (or why anybody might find her praiseworthy, sympathetic, or conversely, annoying) at all.
Looking at her history, it’s possible I may be misremembering this, but isn’t it true that when her father was so badly injured - in fact, paralysed - she was just about to compete at Worlds (?), and didn’t make any public fuss about what had happened at all? That is my recollection, but as I said, perhaps that is not an accurate memory. I certainly don’t think she made a big thing of it, though - however, later on, NBC commentators did lay it on pretty thick about her family and Everything They Had Been Through (which isn’t to say they didn’t genuinely suffer! of course they did). But I can see there were elements of telling her story as one of personal suffering, which may be grating for the viewer at an individual level. The storylines about her dad sometimes bug me - speaking as a wheelchair user - because they can be a bit regressive and patronising, even though I’m sure becoming paralysed suddenly is objectively far worse than my own “journey” (cringe) to needing a wheelchair.
Anyway, sorry if this is already tl;dr, my point is really just that I think not “vibing” with Suni as a gymnast is obviously fine, and being irritated by how a gymnast is presented in the media (as you say, we don’t know them!), including their own role in that, is probably quite normal. I personally don’t think Suni even comes close to the most self-victimising gymnasts, but I won’t repeat any of my earlier mistakes on the gymternet by mentioning who I think those are…And it’s definitely YMMV territory.
Are you from SEC country? And besides, isn't it a bit sexist/racist to state that? Just because he is a football player does that mean he is less exposed to criticism, verbal taunts, and threats? If you really want to research go dig up some tweets after a bad game and scroll through the "you should die" "leave now" "You suck" posts. Now you're assuming just because he is a football player those threats and taunts are minimized?!
While I had to google Bo Nix, it's still not clear why you think he and his experience ought to be the standard here. Even assuming you're referring only to the level of scrutiny, which is just one of the things Suni talked about, it's not zero sum. Auburn has thousands of people there. It's quite possible for more than one of them to experience weird stalkery behaviour. Inappropriate isn't rationed. As others have pointed out, it should also be extremely obvious why someone the size of Suni might be differently affected than someone the size of Bo Nix.
And yet they do with more tenacity than at 5 ft female. What are you saying?! A threat is a threat, it is like an assault is an assault whether done by a male or female. Even though Suni was never physically assaulted, you are saying because in a hypothetical physical confrontation, a football player would have a better chance of coming out with less harm than a gymnast, therefore it's not that big of a deal? Sigh
What I have been trying to get people to understand.
I cant believe you cant see the hypocrisy and sexism of that statement. You don't know Bo anymore than Suni, yet you want to project your worldview that all football players are big burly gladiators who have no emotion and are not affected by threats, like a tiny little woman.
Could you be a darling and stop making things up long enough to explain why Bo Nix is the relevant standard here?
For sure. I remember Simone spending a lot of time on social media in Tokyo, arguing with people who thought she was wimping out.
I can imagine it was particularly difficult to stay off in Tokyo, because of there being so little else to do. The flipside to that is that engaging was particularly toxic too. Just an extreme and unhealthy situation all round.
