Playbook Of The Uninformed: Emotion Over Facts
A photo of unmasked athletes sparks online shaming and exposes ignorance of mainstream media and others
Just when we thought it was safe for young people to enjoy life, the Covid justice warriors strike again.
All it took was one photograph.
Sunday, an event was held at Marist High School in Chicago hosted by Tom Lemming, the famous recruiting guru written about in Michael Lewis’s book “The Blind Side.”
During the event, Matt Lemming, Tom Lemming’s nephew who is also a recruiting analyst, gathered the group of young men, all highly touted 2022 grads, together for a photo shoot.
Matt Lemming posted the photo on his Twitter feed:
You can imagine what happened once the photo uploaded onto Twitter.
Actually, no need to imagine, I’ll publish a few of the comments here:
There are more and more of these comments but I will not indulge the foolish and stupid.
Because it’s harmful. It’s harmful to the re-opening of schools, sports and getting on with our lives. Foolish and stupid enables those already succumbed by fear to keep locks on the doors.
Mask-shaming has surpassed fat-shaming as a favorite past time on social media by mean-spirited losers (Twitter attracts uneducated whims like the Cubs lineup does strikeouts.)
When that shaming is directed at healthy teenagers at an event celebrating their accomplishments?
It’s embarrassing for them. But not all that surprising as misinformation about Covid and youth sports is in the midst of a second wave.
I grudgingly give one of the above tweeters credit.
There is a connection between the latest ‘surge’ and youth sports.
But the tweeter is mostly wrong.
Last week, the director of the Centers For Disease Control, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, gave a virtual press conference. At the presser, she said this:
We are learning many outbreaks in young people are related to youth sports and extracurricular activities.
Dr. Walensky did not elaborate on what ‘related’ means. She advised how more testing might diminish the outbreaks.
Recent data shows that in some parts of the country, more young people are testing positive for Covid.
In an article published Monday, the Wall Street Journal wrote this:
Five states—Michigan, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey—account for some 42% of newly reported cases. In Michigan, adults aged 20 to 39 have the highest daily case rates, new data show. Case rates for children aged 19 and under are at a record, more than quadruple from a month ago. There were 301 reported school outbreaks as of early last week, up from 248 the week prior, according to state data.
Epidemiologists and public-health authorities have pointed to school sports as a major source of Covid-19 transmission. Since January, K-12 sports transmission in Michigan has been highest in basketball, with 376 cases and 100 clusters; in hockey, with 256 cases and 52 clusters; and in wrestling, with 190 cases and 55 clusters. Overall, cases and clusters have occurred in over 15 sport settings, data from the state shows.
Just like Walensky’s comments about ‘related to’ youth sports, the WSJ article provides no context to how sports is a ‘major source of Covid-19 transmission.’
(There remains vacant any study that ties virus transmission to the playing of sports. Remember all that fear porn gibberish Gov. Pritzker was selling last fall about ‘spit and saliva’ transfer causing Covid? Never happened. And still hasn’t, this after eight months of sports being played all over the state and country).
The lack of context and general vagueness acts as an accelerant within social media algorithms, sparking deceiving headlines:
Each one of these headlines is misleading at best, flat out untrue at worst. They spread the mistruth that the playing of youth sports is wrong and that kids need to be protected and feel ‘safe’ by avoiding high risk activities like football, soccer and…photo shoots.
It gives permission for the foolish to tweet false equivalencies, that somehow the cancellation of games is their fault, and that they should just fall in line.
No. That’s not how a free society works.
The Covidbro types, many of whom are in mainstream sports and news media, justify the shaming of teenagers with passive-aggressive behavior, covering and writing about events but on social media, basically telling kids they should feel guilty about their activities and should just shut up and take it.
Do you want to play your season? Do you want to finish your season?
Then just do what they tell you to do. Be responsible. Wear a mask.
Come on, man. There’s only a few weeks left. It’s not that hard.
Emotion over facts. That’s what you’ll generally get from mainstream media reporters and outlets as it pertains to Covid.
At the photo shoot in question, here’s what actually happened from a parent who was there:
A review of CDC guidelines still recommends maintaining six feet of distance for no more than 15 minutes.
So for a few seconds, teenagers removed their masks for a photo at an event held to enhance their collegiate options?
Yet this is ‘unnecessary’ and ‘ridiculous.’
Later Monday, Matt Lemming responded to claims about the event made by Michael O’Brien, preps editor of the Chicago Sun-Times:
Emotion over facts.
This is what gets rewarded on social media but threatens our democracy.
There is nothing wrong with a group of teenagers posing for a photo with their masks off. Especially when there is nuance involved (they took the mask off for the shoot).
But Twitter doesn’t reward nuance. It rewards absolutes.
The absolute—those not wearing masks are doing the wrong thing, the adults in the room are acting recklessly—perpetuates propaganda.
When that propaganda diminishes rights to personal freedoms finally just emerging back from a year of oppressive lockdowns, it must be called out.
Here is a tweet I sent out Monday morning reacting to the photo:
Outdated contact tracing rules are a problem. I’m going to write about that topic more in the coming weeks.
But a bigger problem continues to be disinformation campaigns by those hiding behind the mastheads of ‘legitimate’ media.
Let them play. And let them be free from being targets of the shamefully uninformed.
You have missed the point. There is no reason they couldn’t have waited 2 weeks to take this picture. At that point the season is over and no more games would be canceled. If one of these kids test positive this week then more games will be canceled. Two more weeks of game tape is more valuable than a photo.