Not over yet.

So she also complained about getting paid $25 an hour for a job that is really only two minutes per hour of work. Thats nice. That will certainly garner sympathy and support from the cherished sports entertainment demographic.

So she also complained about getting paid $25 an hour for a job that is really only two minutes per hour of work. Thats nice. That will certainly garner sympathy and support from the cherished sports entertainment demographic.

Does she do anything other than shift blame from herself to others?

Under the bridge: a female journalist's life among the sports troll army
In an extract from her latest book, Julie DiCaro explains why the old advice about ignoring harassment on social media simply doesn’t work


Julie DiCaro
Tue 16 Mar 2021 08.09 EDT

My first experience with mass trolling was in 2013. I had recently published a piece that attempted to dispel some of the myths about the behavior of rape victims by sharing, for the first time, my own rape story. I’d written it in response to all the slut‑shaming comments I’d seen about the sexual assault victim of then Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston. A segment of FSU fans, educated neither in the dynamics of sexual violence nor in the psychology of trauma, had taken to Twitter to point out that his accuser had to be lying, because she didn’t report the rape immediately and because she texted Winston after the attack.

In the piece, I wrote about how it took me months, maybe years, to consider what happened to me “rape,” even though an army officer, much bigger and stronger than I was, held me down and overpowered me. Even though I kept saying no. Even though I was sore for days afterward. It happened during spring break of my senior year of college. The next night, I saw my rapist again at a bar. I made a beeline for him and chatted with him about college basketball. I couldn’t tell you to this day why I did that. Maybe because I needed to convince myself it wasn’t rape.

The day the piece ran, I was introduced to my first mass troll attack. As quickly as the piece went up, I had dozens of complete strangers threatening to kill me, accusing me of making up my own rape, and describing to me, in detail, what they’d like to do to me should our paths ever cross. I was so shocked that I made my account private and stayed away from Twitter for days. Eventually, it blew over.

The second time I was attacked by a troll army was far, far worse.

**

It was August 2015 when Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane was accused of sexual assault. I had started working at my radio station, the biggest sports station in Chicago, only a few months before. Because I’d both been a criminal defense attorney and worked with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, I was in a unique position to explain to our listeners how the investigation would proceed and what each step meant. And because I’d already developed a reputation of writing about violent athletes, several people close to the investigation reached out to me privately to talk anonymously and sometimes off the record.

A few days after the story broke, I wrote a piece for our website titled “How NOT To Talk About the Patrick Kane Case,” calling out some of the “fans” who had taken to social media to share photos of the victim talking to Kane at a bar earlier in the evening and to speculate that she invented the rape as a “money grab,” even though she never sought a financial settlement from Kane. We were told by our station’s management to be extremely careful not to weigh in on Kane’s guilt or innocence publicly. I tried to analyze the case straight down the middle but found myself spending a lot of time online and on the air debunking myths about rape victims and women in general.

And then the case against Kane fell apart. I have very definite feelings on how and why that happened. I stand by every iota of reporting I did during that time. I still believe all of it to be true. I never once weighed in on Kane’s guilt or innocence. I would have been fired if I had stated my opinion one way or the other.

The day we got word that a family member of the victim had interfered with the investigation and that the case would not move forward, the trolls descended on me like a nuclear bomb. More than one man threatened to come to Chicago to kill me. Another suggested the only just punishment for me was to be raped with a hockey stick. Another said he hoped I would be raped “again.” Someone else sent me the worst message I have ever received. It was an image of a naked woman, bound and blindfolded and bleeding. I still haven’t recovered from that one.

And then there was a much more direct threat. In the midst of all the notifications I was getting about all the ways Blackhawks fans wanted to maim and kill me, someone sent me a picture of the entrance to the building where I worked. It wasn’t the main building entrance; it was a small entrance around the back: the way I got into the building every day.

That was the first time I understood what it meant to have your blood run cold. Remembering that moment, I can feel my blood going cold again. This was before I got into the habit of taking screenshots of all the threats. The first thing I did was pick up the phone and start shouting in a panic at my husband, who was in the middle of a conference call and was completely unaware of what was happening. Next, I called my boss. It was near the end of the week. We agreed it was safest for me to stay home until the following Monday.

Over the course of that weekend, the threats continued to roll in. I was afraid to go outside, afraid to be online. The camera on my laptop kept turning on by itself. I covered it up with tape. Word had gotten out, and a dozen media outlets contacted me for an interview. I was too afraid to talk to anyone.

I stayed in bed almost the entire weekend.

When Monday rolled around, I took a deep breath, donned the biggest pair of sunglasses I could find, and stuffed all my hair, which is recognizable, into a hoodie. I kept my head down the entire long train ride into the city and on the bus to my office. As I walked along the side of my building to a different entrance than the one I used, I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the glass. Head down, shoulders hunched, looking like the Unabomber. I stopped and stared, disgusted with myself. This was not me. I was cowering and hiding because of a bunch of jerks on Twitter who were so worked up over a player they had never met that they were threatening to hurt me? SCREW THAT. I ripped off my hood, took off my sunglasses. I held my head high as I rode the escalator to the second level of the lobby. In the coming months and years, I would protect my Twitter and Facebook accounts many times, but I would never hide again.

hero... brave!

She spent a whole chapter on it. She was worried that men objectified her and assessed her body. My goodness some of those black outfits she wore were incredibly hot.

I am not sure what to think. Why are women getting their hair and nails done and wearing really sexy clothes if when men get turned on by it (presumably the goal) that we should be chided?

I look at all pro athletes and marvel at their physical traits and abilities.

Have beef is the correct wording

"A beef" would work too but in recent years its been used that way

Her story changes everytime she tells it. It's pretty much a given she was never raped. Last time she told it it was a "marine on spring break" as if marines get a spring break...

Maybe it was a marine animal?

Her story changes everytime she tells it. It's pretty much a given she was never raped. Last time she told it it was a "marine on spring break" as if marines get a spring break...

Maybe it was a marine animal?