People are Dumb

Kazzy

One man. Two boys. Twelve kids.

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25 Responses

  1. Vikram Bath says:

    Is the poll of football fanatics? Or does it include casual fans or even non-fans?

    Because Michael Vick was famous outside of football for what he did. Ndamukong Suh similarly has a reputation that people would have heard about without seeing a single NFL game.

    Meanwhile, this post is the first time I have heard anything about Ben Roethlisberger.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Vikram Bath says:

      Hey @vikram-bath

      I initially neglected to include a link to the report, since added. It indicates that the poll was of the public at large.

      “Pollsters have told us on a few occasions that while Vick scores well with hardcore NFL fans, casual fans still identify him mostly with the legal woes of a few years ago.”

      This supports your theory.

      I’m surprised that you are unfamiliar with Roethlisberger. He has won two Super Bowls, was a top draft pick, and is every bit the start that Vick was. It is curious to me that Vick’s crimes permeated the social zeitgeist but Ben’s did not.Report

      • Vikram Bath in reply to Kazzy says:

        I’ve heard of him. I hadn’t heard of the charges against him though.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Kazzy says:

        That is part of what is curious to me: One multimillionaire star athlete’s transgressions are known to the public atlarge far more than another multimillionaire star athlete’s trangressions are… To say nothing of lesser players with lesser trangressions.

        I realize this is an apples to bananas to pineapples comparison, but I’d be curious what are the factors that impact how deep a story penetrates. Why did Te’o get more pub than Ben?Report

      • Cathy in reply to Kazzy says:

        The longevity of the cultural attention to Vick & Te’o over Rdfgdgr sadly does not surprise me at all. I think it boils down to the uniqueness of a case. The stranger or more unusual the facts, the longer something will be remembered. Dogfighting? Not bizarre necessarily, but certainly unusual (and people love animals more than people, generally). Te’o story IS bizarre. A star athlete [accused of] sexually assaulting woman? Meh. Those are a dime a dozen, and each instance is eventually replaced in the news cycle either by something more interesting to people, or by the next athlete in that position.Report

  2. Patrick says:

    I think you seriously underestimate how much hatred is generated by “guilty of seriously sucking”.Report

  3. I have heard of Michael Vick only because of the dog fighting.

    I have heard of Manti Te’o only because of some weirdness with a fake relationship or something. I could not be bothered to learn any of the details.

    I have not heard of the third guy or the fourth guy. If I knew that one of them was guilty of serial sexual assault, I’m pretty sure I’d hate that guy a lot. But I knew nothing at all about them.

    I know nothing of Mark Sanchez’s athletic skills. I only know that he is very, very, very handsome.

    I do, however, agree that people are dumb.Report

  4. Nob Akimoto says:

    Also I think you overestimate the degree to which being a serial quasi-rapist is important for people who hate Ben Roethlisberger. I think most of them just hate him because he’s a Steeler. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…)Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

      Making them all the dumber.

      “Look… Rape is a tricky topic… But playing for the Steelers? That’s a bridge too far.”Report

      • Nob Akimoto in reply to Kazzy says:

        Well, yes. But I’m just saying. I think the Steelers part is a bigger part of the hate against him than his serial rape.Report

      • Mark Thompson in reply to Kazzy says:

        I kind of doubt that, honestly. I mean, of all the teams that people love to hate, I think the Steelers are historically pretty low on the list – the Cowboys are at the top of the list, you’d have the Raiders fairly high, probably the rest of the NFC East as well, and definitely the Patriots. Possibly the Ravens. But that’s about it.

        The last couple of years since Rerhasfdfdger’s rape allegations, I’ve gotten the sense that’s changed a bit, but that obviously would support the notion that it’s Rggdsfweter rather than the Steelers that people are reacting to.

        The reason that he’s not higher on the list is I think pretty clearly that his story didn’t capture the front pages like Te’o and Vick’s stories. But with that, I think it can get explained by the fact that the Roethlisberger was never formally charged and the investigation was generally kept as low profile as possible under the circumstances – and understandably so; as a result, not a lot of details ever came out. On top of that, the charging decision was made fairly quickly – only about a month after the story first broke.

        The Te’o story more easily caught the popular imagination because it was so bizarre; it’s also a lot fresher in the public’s mind than the Roethlisberger case, which was three years ago now.

        As for Vick, even though it’s a much older story, it was a story that played out over a pretty lengthy period of time and actually resulted in not only charges but a conviction and jail time. On top of that, it’s important to remember that in many ways Vick was the face of the NFL for awhile – a megastar in a way that Roethlisberger has never been. It’s not often that megastars get multi-year sentences. It’s even less often that, after serving those sentences, they actually come back and have reasonably successful careers, albeit without being quite the megastar they had been.Report

  5. Burt Likko says:

    Sexual assault? Very bad. Not excusing or domesticating it. Murder, however, is even worse. Let me give you three names: Aaron Hernandez (not yet convicted but it looks bad), Ray Lewis, and O.J. Simpson. Simpson escaped criminal liability under circumstances we all know. Ray Lewis? When he retired, they held a party for him!

    And if you’re going to (rightly) condemn Roethlisberger for behavior that sure looks like sexual assault, let’s not forget the Oakland Raiders’ Darrell Russell, who might not have been actually raping that girl, but he did think it was a damn good time to videotape it. I guess we just expect that sort of thing out of a guy who plays for the Oakland Raiders. And maybe that’s true for any player whose team mascot resembles a pirate, like, say, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Nate Webster.

    As a culture don’t seem to like drunk drivers very much. But people seem to like Donte’ Stallworth just fine.

    Oh, and Ryan Leaf ought to retain high negatives too, but being a spoiled, prissy little bitch who stunk up the field isn’t the same thing as being a murderer, and his crimes (for which he is still serving time) were committed after leaving the NFL.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Burt Likko says:

      Itis unclear to me if former players were included. Because you also have Ray Carruth, Leonard Little, Randy Moss, Nate Newton, JaMarcus Russell, Brett Favre (how quickly we forget about his myriad off- and on-field issues because he had fun out there (TM)!)…

      Jared Allen, among current players, also has at least a couple of DUIs on his record. But he has assumed the persona of a WWE character so I guess that’s cool…Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Burt Likko says:

      I’ve come around on Ray Lewis. What he had was a valid stand your ground action, in my opinion. (It was still a significant error to obstruct justice and destroy evidence, however)Report

  6. Pinky says:

    A case that led to a conviction is likely more substantive than one that was dismissed. If people are taking that into account, good for them.Report

  7. Slade the Leveller says:

    This is truly a bizarre list. Of the 10 only Roethlisberger and Vick have perpetrated any crime, and half are are on the list just because they stink (Hello, Jay Cutler). And Reggie Bush???

    Ray Lewis’ image being rehabilitated has to be one of the greatest PR campaigns of this century. How he didn’t crack the top 10, other than perhaps being ineligible for not being active, is inexplicable.Report