The UFC’s Forrest Griffin recently won a Twitter bonus from the promotion for having the “Most Creative” tweets. The system of embracing the popular social media outlet and providing bonuses has always been a risky one. Fighters have had no shortage of embarrassing moments on Twitter.
Griffin hit a new low today when he made the following “joke”:
There is absolutely nothing funny about rape. And it’s probably worth noting that this couldn’t have come at a worse time. He actually made the same joke two hours earlier and then repeated it.
With a new audience and more attention than possibly ever before being focused on the UFC, just days before the promotion’s debut on Fox, one of its most marketable stars is publicly joking about rape. This is also occurring during a time when sex crimes are front and center on the sports landscape with the Penn State University molestation story (a situation Forrest also felt it okay to use to insult someone).
If that wasn’t enough, Griffin took to insulting fans who told him it was inappropriate. Such as in this exchange:
He then informed everyone that “following him is a privilege.”
It wasn’t until a woman tweeted him that she had been raped that he apologized. As though only because someone personally was raped was it truly okay to find the situation offensive. At that point Forrest sees that there is something wrong with joking about rape.
Rape is a life changing, and in many cased life ruining, thing. Dana White and the UFC can hide behind statements like the following for only so long:
Everybody makes mistakes and everybody does things that are wrong sometimes. … We do the best we can do. How do you really think that we could possibly police 375 fighters and try to control everything they say?
Yes, if you’re going to reward them for the things they say, you can also hold them accountable for the same.
If you want to play like you’re on the level of the big boys like the NFL, you can do the same as they do. They manage to “police” many more than 375 people.
And don’t feed me nonsense about how that would “ruin” the sport because of some sort of reduction in the individuality of fighters. If you need your fighters to be able to make jokes about homosexuals and rape to enjoy the sport, there’s probably something wrong with you.
Forrest Griffin was rewarded for his use of Twitter, and now he should be punished for it.
NOTE: Fun’s fun, but it’s time to move along. Comments are closed. Nate
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