Tennis star Novak Djokovic got himself booted from the US Open on Sunday after he — accidentally, it seems — hit a line judge in the throat with a tennis ball, sending her sprawling to the ground clutching her neck.
Djokovic’s suspension was pretty much automatic — the rules are clear — but rather than blame him for hitting a ball in frustration after play was over, his fans decided to take their anger out on the line judge instead.
As the Daily Mail explained:
Fans of the world No 1 were quick to take to social media, finding [the line judge’s] public profile and sending thousands of hate-filled messages, including death threats. …
[Her] son died in 2008, and one of Djokovic’s fans told her ‘don’t worry, you’ll join him soon’ … while another posted: ‘hahahahahahahaha YEEEEES, YEEEEEEEES.’
They were not much more polite on Twitter, calling her a “bitch,” a “cunt” and a “Karen,” and accusing her of exaggerating her pain after being struck by the ball.
There’s nothing, it seems, that online misogynists can’t blame on a woman, but blaming a woman for being hit with a ball is a new one for me.
She didn’t make the rule that got Djokovic disqualified. She didn’t force him to hit the ball in frustration. Her only crime was catching a fast-moving tennis ball in the neck.
Djokovic, for what it’s worth, has asked his fans to stop targeting her, noting that “she’s done nothing wrong.” But somehow I doubt that will shut them up.
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Re: being called a Karen.
I honestly never knew it implied being a racist.
I got called it on Twitter a few months ago after I’d commented *in support of BLM*.
Someone replied, “I don’t think an old bag like you should be allowed to comment”.
I pointed out that as it’s not porn, nobody cares about his erection.
They replied “You must be a Karen” (or that was their next tweet at me: I’m not sure it was meant as a sequitur).
I was vaguely aware it was an insult.
Possibly they didn’t know what it means either.
You live and you learn.
@Naglfar
TERFs are like “the trans cult tries to reduce gender to a bunch of stereotypes! They don’t understand that you can be a ‘masculine’ woman or a ‘feminine’ man!” And then they’re like “Real men have deep voices and are built like Dwayne Johnson, and any man who doesn’t have chest hair sticking out of his shirt is an imposter.”
@Viscaria
We need to abolish gender. Gender is bad. And if you have a better way to abolish gender then forcing everyone to follow strict gender stereotypes of which ever gender they were assigned at birth I’d love to hear it. /sarcasm
@Naglfar
I can’t access that tweet (don’t know why). It’s the kind of thing I’d like to write about on my blog. Can you take screen shots of the tweet thread or point me to some other source of info about it?
If you can’t I understand. If you can, thanks a ton!
@Crip Dyke
Here’s a screenshot:
And, I finally found the original post on Ovarit, which appears to be a new TERF forum site that has sprung up after Reddit banned most of the TERF subs.
https://ovarit.com/o/GenderCritical/3570/many-tifs-look-and-sound-like-13yo-boys
(TW transphobia, general creepiness)
To give a slight bit of credit, some of the responses did point out that there is no real evidence that the YouTuber is trans, but most went off on weird tangents about puberty blockers
@Viscaria
TERF groups are also fond of claiming that GNC people are all LGB, which is obviously homophobic stereotyping, and ignores that there are masculine straight women or feminine straight men.
These fuckwits have come full fucking circle. They don’t seem to notice or care that they are coming up with the exact same bullshit as the ultra-conservative bigots of the ’70s and before who wanted us all in skirts and dresses, with long hair and ‘invisible’ makeup, aspiring to be stay-at-home mothers.
Eh, there are so many shitty things going on at the moment that I want to wish these fucking arseholes things bordering on violence, so I’d better stop typing until I feel a bit less pissed off.
@Lakitha
No, it’s how we handle women. There are some specific men that get death threats, but by and large it’s a thing that happens to women. It’s a misogynist thing. It’s not more than simple misogyny.
@POM
Yup! This! So much this.
@Ohlmann
I must misunderstand you. A woman was threatened with death and the correct reporting of this incident is that fans were frustrated about a sporting incident, and one (death threats implies plural, though) fan went too far?
Isn’t the correct reporting that a woman was threatened with death by misogynist fans, while sports star delays and then asks fans to stop, but no measurable cessation of harassment is produced? Isn’t it that, although clearly the footage is of masculine authority making and delivering the decision to boot said sports star, a woman’s authority as line judge is questioned, as is her authority to feel pain in her own body?
I don’t understand why the correct reporting should be either sports-star-centric or fan-centric, given the result of what happened. It should focus on what happened to the woman, given the massive, horrendous consequences to her.
@opposablethumbs
I think they notice, they just don’t care. TERFs have pretty much merged with the alt right and the TradCons at this point and are working with antiLGBT groups in the US for funding, so it’s no accident that they have the same views as conservatives.
Full confession here: my name is Karen. I have never, even ONCE, pulled the kind of attitude or displayed the kind of behavior that “Karen” is supposed to imply. I’m just sick about the way my name has been stolen and perverted and twisted and used to craft some vicious unintended meaning. Seriously, how is this not appropriation? I don’t really care if this perversion of a perfectly normal name was “created in the black community” or made up by some incel in a basement corner, it was a benign, fairly innocuous name and it NEVER meant this. The whole stupid Karen meme is a way for hip, self-congratulatory people to use a shorthand reference that makes them appear “with-it.”
I don’t even remember if the original offender was actually named Karen, or if somebody just grabbed a cute, catchy, casually vicious, alliterative sound-byte to make a meme to pour more-enlightened-than-thou derision on a mind-set. I know what it’s “supposed” to mean, but none of the dozens of Karens I’ve actually known in my life — most of them perfectly decent, overwhelmingly unremarkable, 50-60-y-o-ish people who are genuinely appalled at the entitled, boorish, privileged behavior suddenly and universally ascribed to them — have behaved in anything like this. I have a 20-y-o niece named Karen, a sensitive and kind and shy young artist, who visibly cringes when people laugh and give her knowing looks when hearing (or overhearing) her name. My heart breaks for her. It’s worse than being named Stacy or Chad or Becky, because it’s now everywhere, it’s casually accepted cruelty, and it’s just unrelenting. I thought this would pass, but it never does.
So maybe stop for a minute before you add to this undeserved misery. None of us earned this. Imagine if your own, personal, unremarkable name suddenly became shorthand for “unrepentant pedophile,” or “brutal torturer of small animals,” or “clueless and vicious abuser of elderly neighbors.” None of the Karens I know asked for any of this. Imagine being so heartsick with the undeserved venom that you try to change your own name in your 60s.
I don’t always live up to my potential. Often I’m less-than-perfect, but I’ve never been this. Yeah, I can be a bitch — but I’m not that bitch.
That’s all it takes for these melons to scream “Trans!!!!!!” ?
Shit, my voice is both fairly high pitched and soft. Where do I report in?
@Naglfar
I said thanks in advance, but allow me to thank you again. I’ve never encountered that before when twitter told me I didn’t have the privileges to access a twitter page to which I had been directly linked.
I have never had a twitter account, but following links always seemed to work before.
@Threp
The only thing unusual in this case is that they are attacking a man. Usually TERFs harass cis women for not being feminine or for having a certain facial feature and accuse them of being trans*. This especially happens to Black women (see: Michelle Obama, Caster Semenya, a whole load of Black actresses and musicians, etc), which just shows how racist they are and how much cultural ideas of femininity are linked to ideas of whiteness.
@Crip Dyke
I do use Twitter regularly and it’s been happening more and more over the past couple weeks. Usually refreshing the page seems to fix it, but I don’t know why it’s happening.
I’m not even convinced that “Karen” started out in the black community. I checked Know Your Meme and there’s no indication there of a black community connection.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/karen
I’m not saying it’s impossible, because Know Your Meme might be overlooking something in a systemic-racist way, but my memory doesn’t match up with the idea either.
I remember a spate of racist white women calling the cops on black people living their lives a couple of years ago (maybe 2018 or 2019) but each of them got a unique nickname, like BBQ Becky, and Pool Patty. I don’t recall Karen ever being anything but a misogynist slur directed toward assertive women who “want to speak with the manager” because god forbid you ever want to speak with the manager while female.
I got punched in the throat once in a karate competition (Ia long time ago). I blacked out, briefly. I wonder how that compares? I mean, a tennis ball has a lot less mass than a fist, but tennis balls have been clocked at over 160 mph and a professional punch is about 20 mph. I think the tennis ball probably had quite a bit more kinetic energy.
I also wonder how many of the people sending death threats are actually Djokovic fans, and how many just enjoy threatening women for a hobby?
@PoM: I’ve seen several iterations of what Karen is “supposed” to mean, but it’s the speed at which this has become just another casual, vicious insult that is so appalling. And it is ubiquitous. This is one of the sites where I come to read smart people discussing relevant issues (and watch kittens and goats jumping on sheet metal), and even here there are truly savvy, educated, articulate people trying to decide if MY NAME is actually code for racist behavior, or who is allowed to use it as an insult, or what the actual context of the uncertain insult is, or whether it’s actually just (just!) another misogynist slur because this complete tool of a Twitter commenter called the line ref “a complete cunt of a Karen.”
I mean, this is not a “term that was coined.” This is a perfectly normal name that has been highjacked, abused, and perverted. I just wish that people would think before playing along with the so-cool-in-the-know expropriation. And believe me — it’s also the split-second evaluation that people now make when they hear your name for the first time that makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach. It might hit others more personally if it were their name being stolen and redefined.
I’ll drop it, but this literally makes me sick. It is relentless.
@Kaybee
I’m actually agreeing with you, although I may not have conveyed that well. The idea that white people are not allowed to use “Karen” but black people are because: appropriation doesn’t really hold up with me. My experience is that it’s never been anything except a slur intended to put down assertive women who won’t take shit from you. It needs to die, for all users.
@ kaybee
Sorry to hear about your name discomfort. By way of small consolation have a donkey playing football.
@PoM, no, I get it. Thanks for the explanation (really), but yours is NOT the position that gets me so steamed. I also look side-eyed at the claim that only SOME people get to use my name as a dismissive, insulting slur because (reasons).
This is just so personal! I wish its 15 minutes were just over, but I’m afraid this might never pass…
But thanks for the kind words! You’re one of the commenters who keeps me coming back.
@Alan Robertshaw: You Rock — this made my evening! Now I need to figure out how to obtain a football-playing donkey.
Re: the “Karen” thing, as I remember things, the term “Karen” was used to describe white, middle-class, usually married, usually moms, who were overly-entitled and very quick to ask to speak to the manager of whatever establishment they were patronizing. White folks calling to cops on African Americans for existing-while-black would have some unique alliterative moniker created for them individually, like Permit Patty for the woman who reported the kids for selling lemonade. At some point, these terms combined, and folks started calling white women who were quick to call the cops on black folks “Karens”. I find this development confusing, sexist (why we letting white men off the hook), and a really shitty thing to do to non-racist folks who happen to be named Karen; but I don’t know what to do about it other than avoid doing that myself.
We’re really doing the “Karen is a slur” thing now, huh?
@An Impish Pepper — I’m happy to stand down. But I’m not really sure what other lesson to take from expressions like, “complete cunt of a Karen.”
@Kaybee
I am sorry that your name is being used against women, all the women named Karen that I have known have been fine people and I do not mean to cause you or anyone else discomfort. I apologize for any harm I may have caused.
Personally I think those wretched, over-entitled women should be called “Verucas” but I don’t think I can make it happen any more than “fetch”.
@moregeekthan
I don’t think white males are being let of the hook I think it’s more that a term like ‘karen’ hasn’t been fully adapted yet. Some people use ‘ken’ or ‘kyle’ but no one name has been universally accepted.