It was an interesting morning on social media. A St. Louis Cardinals tweet about a promotional giveaway that will take place on May 17th went sideways.
The goal was to let know fans know they can receive replica 1967 World Series Championship rings. Unfortunately, the social media team posted something that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
“You love baseball, she loves jewelry. On May 17, it’s a win-win.”
— Jessica Kleinschmidt (@KleinschmidtJD) May 9, 2017
Instantly, the comments came flooding through highlighting the sexism involved in this promotional event.
“Why can’t women love baseball?” “Why can’t men love jewelry?” The list goes on and on.
Listen, they were going to get heat no matter what was said. If they didn’t cater to the female fans, they would have heard it. They decided to cater to what they thought would benefit the self-identified female fans.
Either way, it wouldn’t have ended well.
They ultimately deleted the tweet because that’s the easiest thing to do. Nevertheless, there was plenty of backlash.
So we get this clear: WOMEN 👏 LIKE 👏 SPORTS 👏 AND 👏 OUR 👏 MONEY 👏 IS 👏 JUST 👏 AS 👏 GOOD 👏 SO 👏 MARKET 👏 TO 👏 US 👏 AND 👏 YOU'LL 👏 MAKE 👏 $$$
— Kari Steele (@karicsteele) May 9, 2017
Van Horn makes a good point. Women are allowed to like sports. But it’s a weird position to be in. You have to cater to certain groups, but you can’t offend said groups. You are basically forced to perform an action in hopes of not receiving a reaction.
News flash, you’re going to offend someone, regardless.
When it comes to females in sports or any other type of place in society, I am all about girl power. I’m like Spice Girls over here. Self-identified women and transgender men and women deserve equal rights, equal pay, and anything else that’s being comparative to counterparts.
Will it happen? Let’s hope so. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t require respect. That’s not the point, though.
No matter how sports markets try and appeal to women, it will cause some sort of uproar.
The glow is so obvious on my face when I see women standing up for themselves (or tweeting up for themselves in this case) and saying “screw you I like baseball more than jewelry.” That’s great, we need more of that. Stick to your guns.
Should the social media team have tweeted something else to promote this event? Perhaps. Do we really know what is politically correct anymore? No.
Using 140 characters to make your statement has proven it can make an impact these days. You get free chicken nuggets and can meet Ellen. You can earn a free flight sometimes, and some even find their significant others on Twitter.
In this case, it got a Major League Baseball team’s social media account to delete their tweet, which wasn’t as bad as some have made it out to be.
These things are happening redundantly. It’s starting to show that some don’t know any better, but many of the reactions just spark fires.
You win. The tweet was deleted. Unfortunately, these issues never will be.