Words hurt.
That’s the lesson Just Not Sports set out to prove when they had regular guys read the mean tweets female sportswriters receive on a daily basis.
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These harassing comments contained everything from inappropriate sexual references to death threats. Come see how the men who read these tweets reacted.
TW: This article contains some discussion that readers may find upsetting.
You’ve probably heard about the “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” series on *Jimmy Kimmel Live*.
Like the name says, celebs read some of the mean tweets that they receive daily out loud on camera.
Kim Kardashian, for instance, had someone tweet, “I’d rather plant poison ivy plants in my anus before hearing another word about Kim Kardashian.”
While there’s some humor involved with the series, the overall concept of random strangers on the internet sending out mean tweets is anything but funny.
Mean tweets aren’t limited to just celebrities, either.
Regular people just trying to do their jobs can also get attacked.
In 2016, *The Guardian* commissioned research to be done on the 70 million comments left on the publication’s website since 2006.
The results were pretty disturbing: of the 10 most harassed writers, eight of those are women and two of the men are black.
When it came to the 10 writers who got the least amount of abuse, those results were also disturbing.
They were all men, which furthered the point that men are treated differently in various fields.
This is something that Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro know all too well.
They are female sportswriters working in a field that’s dominated by men.
As if that wasn’t difficult enough, they receive more online harassment than their male co-workers.
This was shown in a video with Just Not Sports. The two women sat down with regular guys and had them read the mean tweets they get every day.
It’s pretty hard to watch.
It starts with some of the more “funny” tweets viewers see in the “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” series on Jimmy Kimmel .
For instance, the first guy read, “I’d like to start a petition for a band on all links to Julie Dicaro’s Twitter feed,” to which Julie laughed.
“Sarah Spain sounds like a nagging wife on TV today,” a tweet about Sarah read.
She replied in jest, responding, “not even married yet.”
Some of the mean commentators even got Julie’s profession wrong. They called her a “beat writer,” which isn’t true. This prompted some more laughs.
But things got serious once the tweets took a turn for the vile.
“One of the players should beat you to death with their hockey stick,” read one tweet addressed to DiCaro.
The sad thing is, these women were simply reporting on controversial subjects, such as the Patrick Kane rape case .
This was the case of two favored players in the NHL being accused of rape.
DiCaro was simply doing her job of reporting on the story. And yet, she still got death threats.
DiCaro has said that her male co-workers didn’t receive the same amount of death threats as she did and that she even stayed home for a few days for her safety.
The reaction from the men reading the tweets was as expected: they were shocked, appalled, angry.
Some even struggled to read the tweets. “I don’t think I can even say that.”
The worst tweet was definitely from one person who wrote, “I hope you get raped again” to DiCaro.
If you’re comfortable enough, you can watch the video below.
As difficult as reading those tweets were, imagine being the one to receive them.
That’s the lesson the video proved: “some women in sports are harassed online just for doing their jobs.”
So let the main takeaway be this: don’t tweet something that you wouldn’t say to a person’s face.
